


Wolves in the Woods

by 10orlessfics



Category: Night In The Woods (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Werecreatures, Blood and Gore, Gun Violence, Non-Canonical Violence, Original Character Death(s), Original Character(s), Other, Suicide Attempt, Were-Creatures, it's one of those stories, sorry about that, will get DARK
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-24
Updated: 2021-02-06
Packaged: 2021-03-16 09:07:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 10
Words: 29,531
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28953939
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/10orlessfics/pseuds/10orlessfics
Summary: Seasons come and go, and so do Friends. Mae thinks the worst change that will happen in her life will be losing Gregg and Angus. After being attacked in the woods though, She'll find there are worse things than friends moving away.
Comments: 21
Kudos: 16





	1. Sick and Wicked

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first Fanfiction. Please excuse all the awkward lumps, oddities and other growing pains that comes with that. Special Thanks to Magical_Alpha's story Stranger Winter for sparking me to try my own NITW fanfiction.

A bitter chill was in the air. The kind that makes you anxious, nervous, even want to attack someone or something. Though perhaps that was just Mae’s bitterness poking through.

The long winter had been ongoing. At least for now, it went into remission. Most of the rest of the country had a delayed or even weaker winter due to the mistakes and greed of generations past. Possum Springs, on the other hand, had its coldest winter to date. 5 feet of snow trapped everyone in their homes. With everyone in an already isolated town having been essentially locked in for nearly a month, it was a miracle that no one went mad. 

Mae felt like something was driving her mad, but she hadn't crossed that road yet.

Mae walked outside, it was still thirty degrees at early January, but with the worst of the winter over, most of everyone was trying to resume life. Most people were relieved beyond belief to be outside, even in bitter cold. 

Mae felt no relief. 

She felt pent-up, but even walking outside free, something in her felt pent-up. When it got bad, she felt like she could claw through her skull into her brain to try to relive the feeling. It was an itch she couldn't scratch, a scab she couldn't pick, a block while writing a paper due tomorrow, a tumblr mood board with broken gifs.

The worst part was, She simply could not place what was bugging her. Best thing she could do, she figured as she walked into the snack falcon's doors, was to try and block it out.

Walking into the doors turned out to be the operative words, she smacked nose first into the unyielding metal and glass. As she got up, nursing a bloody nose, she realized that she had never actually considered that the doors wouldn’t open on their own. As she rose from the wet snow, the doors were opened with some effort, by Gregg, decked out in discount winter gear.

"Hey dude, watch out! Snow froze the doors shut!"

"Now you tell me. Doesn't whatever corporation that owns the snack falcon pay for heating?"

"Not even a little, I was freezing my effin ass off in there!"

"That's bad. Angus likes your ass!"

"Just like I like his! I was leaving anyway, the frozen shut doors mean no one thinks the place is open anyway."

Mae stood. "So. what now?"

"I know I was supposed to grow up..." Gregg mulled.

"But eff it! This might be our last snow day together, so let's take the time for the rare but beloved..."

_"Snow Crimes"_

" _Crimes_ " both fox and cat repeated to each other, each utterance descending into laughter.

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

The forest that surrounded possum springs were lifeless, blanketed by snow. It was eerie, but in a weird way, also sort of magical. It was also cold as hell, but that’s neither here nor there. White, grey and blue became streaks of color as Mae slid across the frozen ice. she had no skates, she was just sliding by the wetness of the ice.

"So, what are you gonna do to the lake?" 

Gregg joined Mae on the ice, walking with malice towards the center.

"Remember that dynamite I used to close up that well?"

"Yeah." Mae muttered, bitter memories coming with the mere mention of the well.

"Well..." Gregg hyped, as he pulled something that immediately brightened Mae's spirits.

"I had spares!" he practically sang, presenting the bundle of red sticks like they were magical death sticks.

"Whatcha gonna do with those?'

"Blow up this effing lake! I was saving it for that abandoned car, but screw it, besides, what am I gonna do with this in Bright Harbor?"

It was only when both were running from the lit dynamite, on their way to hide behind a tree, that what Gregg just said resonated in Mae's mind. 

"Shit, he would be gone soon" she thought, mid sprint. She’d been excited to see the lake go boom, but that realization that her time with Gregg was coming to an end really took the joy from their current activity. She felt like slapping him, not now, but some time later with no explanation. It wasn’t his fault, of course, but somebody out there deserved her wrath.

It also meant that she was off the ball and nearly jumped out of her soul when the dynamite went off.

Even from behind the tree, the explosion still was absurdly powerful in a way that was difficult to articulate. It was like a super strong gust of wind that lasted only a second and made you deaf for a minute. Gregg cheered for a moment before the newly jostled snow from the tree buried both juvenile delinquents.

Both Cat and Fox shook off the snow, admiring their handiwork. The lake had a surprisingly small hole at the epicenter of the blast, spiderweb cracks surrounding the hole. It was still worth it though, as they had knocked the snow off the trees for quite a distance.

Temporarily deaf, Gregg and Mae danced around, basking in the glory of what they had done screaming at the top of their lungs, but unable to hear themselves. 

“That was sick!

“I can’t hear a word you said, but that was wicked!”

Their celebration ended cold when their hearing returned. They heard police sirens, Close police sirens.

"Shit!"

"What?"

"If Angus finds me arrested, he'll freak out! We need to run before we get arrested!" Gregg screamed.

"I got that crystal clear!" Mae yelled as both took off into the woods. They barely missed Molly (Aunt mall cop, to Mae) who ran into the area with the correct suspicion that the loud explosion was Mae’s fault, somehow.

…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

Mae and Gregg had run quite the distance. They ran and ran and ran and ran some more just in case. On the one hand, they had indeed lost Aunt Mall cop. 

On the other hand, they were lost.

"Crap, I don't effn recognize this part of the woods."

"No problem, we just retrace our steps"

"You sure? I think we circled and retraced our steps a couple of times"

"Dude, we got this by the ass. just don't panic, and we'll get home!"

"I'd panic if you tripped and your head got crushed by a bear trap!"

"I'd panic if a wild bear came and ate you"

“I'd-”

………………………………………………………………………………………………………...

Midnight was when all hopes of arriving home were extinguished. By that time, the weather had dropped to below zero, and although they had dressed for the cold, they were exhausted, cold, and kept running into trees in the moonlit darkness of the greater possum springs forest.

"Why!" Gregg screamed, horse because he'd already done much screaming before, "Why'd I do this!? we're gonna @%$@^*$ die out here!"

Mae stayed silent. She was trying to take things one step at a time. She was disappointed that instead of dying in a way with any meaning, she'd likely freeze to death in the woods like an idiot. 

So stupid.

Gregg was still ranting, but when his rant ran out of steam, he began to scream gibberish, he was so angry he’d moved beyond human language.

"Gregg, we need to stop!" Mae was barely able to eek out, teeth chattering in the cold. "It's too dark out, we need to build a fire or something, conserve energy!

"We're almost there, like, I think I can hear cars!" Gregg rasped out, voice starting to give from all the screaming.

"We need warm, what if you lose a toe or something?"

"Who needs toes!? toes are for fascists!" eked out Gregg, probably delirious by this point.

"responsible boyfriends have all their toes intact!"

Gregg stood still, before letting out a defeated, "damn it."

With most twigs and leaves being too wet to start a fire quickly, Gregg tore a sleeve off one of his jackets to light a proper fire. After so long in cold weather, even the horrible smell of burning cotton and nylon was heavenly, if only for the warm.

"Hey Gregg, we're survivalists!"

"Man, the survivalists on tv looked so badass, in real life, it's terrifying and inconvenient."

"So are a lot of things on tv."

"It's always sad to experience something you saw as a kid, only to realize it sucks."

"Just like alcohol."

"I guess now that I crossed this off the bucket list by accident, time to never do it again."

"Maybe it could be fun if we got to plan it out not in winter or something?"

"Nah." Gregg surprisingly gloomily shot back, "Sometimes, you like, just need to leave things in the past."

"Yeah" Mae replied. she knew that due to him and Angus's move to bright harbor in the not too distant future, she'd be left behind. He hadn't even left yet, but the memories she had of him were already tinted with melancholy of that last experience. She felt bad even thinking about it, because Gregg owed nothing to her...

Well, lots of snacks and 145 dollars to be specific, but the free food from the snack falcon made up for that. 

Still, Gregg was his own person, in his own relationship with Angus, they deserved their happy ending. She’d also be left with one less anchor to the world. 

"Don't move, don't make a sound." Gregg whispered. He suddenly moved to hug Mae tight, one arm moving into his jacket.

Before Mae could even think "what?" she saw the thing Gregg noticed.. 

What it was, she couldn't tell. 

It looked like a wolf, but bigger, harsher, it was enough of an in between of a wolf and a bear, but looked like neither that she couldn't even pin down the creature. Whatever it was, it was also in the shadows, light from the fire reflecting off its eye, pinpricks in a huge black mass...

"Mae" Gregg desperately whispered.

"What?" she whispered back.

"Remember the dynamite?"

"Yes?"

"I saved a stick. I'm going to throw it at the fire, scare it away."

"What if we get hurt?"

"That thing would hurt us more than dynamite." Gregg whispered, his grip getting tighter. "I've gotta take the chanc-

Whatever the creature was, it began to growl. 

It was a kind of growl that you could feel in your bones, in the depths of your stomach, the kind of growl that triggered flight or fight in the primordial part of the brain, that had been etched in through generations of experience. Gregg could swear his pocket knife shook from the bassy growl. 

Mae was terrified beyond belief.

Mae wanted out.

Mae, working on flight or fight, ran. It wasn't even a conscious decision, she only realized she had begun to run when she felt the warmth of the fire fade as Gregg screamed her name in a panic.

Had she not been running, she would have seen what Gregg saw.

Gregg witnesses the black mass leap into the air, clearing the fire easily. When it landed, kicking up a ton of snow, very nearly snuffing out the fire, he realized it was after Mae.

Gregg ran towards the monster, his life be damned. Dynamite in one hand and a lighter in the other.

Mae had just realized she was running when a truck hit her. A big furry truck. She had made a sound she had never heard herself make before, the hit smashing the breath in her lungs clean out. 

She was on the ground, she turned to see who or what hit her. 

The black mass stared her in the face, the only light being the shine in its eyes. from this distance, she could even see her own eyes that the reflection. nightmare eyes in nightmare eyes.

The creature bit her, its massive jaws biting into her right shoulder.

She didn't even have time to scream.


	2. To Love is Suffering

It was two in the morning. The highway was nigh empty aside from the odd straggler car passing by hoping to be unnoticed. It was cold as hell outside, but the police car had surprising decent heating.

The back of the police car was oddly comfortable, too. Even with Angus in next to her, she had plenty of space. It was better than her own car, honestly. At a time like this, she wouldn't usually even dare think about something as inane as this, but she had to keep it together. Distract herself.

Poor Angus, however, couldn't.

Bea had, in the years she'd known Angus, never seen him like this. Angus was rare to show emotion aside from rational affection.

"I told him, you can't keep doing this. something horrible might happen to you. But _NO!_ Goddamned Mae has to come in and ask him to do stupid immature shit, and now both are missing! I trusted her too!"

He was pretty goddamned mad.

"Mae's done some stupid things, but never anything that could have almost gotten her and Gregg killed. It must be something..." Bea tried to reason.

Angus was about to respond, but a chill of fear entered his spine when he realized. The only other time anything like this happened was the cult. 

Perhaps they found a way out? 

Perhaps someone related had kidnapped them? 

There was an explosion, powerful enough to even open a bunch of small sinkholes in town. Gregg used dynamite to seal up the well. Did they find a way out? Thoughts scurried in Angus’s mind. Sick with worry, he could’ve vomited right then and there.

The tension was cut by the person in the front seat. Mae’s aunt, Molly, or Aunt Mall-Cop as Mae always liked to say.

"I've known Mae since she was born. She's my sister's daughter. Trust me, she's probably just gone on a walk and got lost. It's happened before.``

Angus from the back replied: "Fair enough I guess, but at least she could have the decency to do what she does without taking my b-er, friend." He didn't know how Officer Molly would react to his sexuality, but better not to test it yet.

"Trust me, stuff like this has happened before. She and, uh...Gregg, right?"

"Yeah."

"She and Gregg i'm sure are perfectly fi-"

Next thing Angus and Bea knew, they were face first in the metal they used to separate the front and back of the police car. Molly had stopped on a dime. As Angus nursed his new black eye, Bea looked through the chain.

Gregg was outside.

She flew out the door,as did officer Molly, to greet the fox on the road. He looked haggard and terrified.

"Sir! are you Gregg Lee?"

"Gregg!" Bea exclaimed, "oh god, where's Ma-"

Angus moved faster than Bea had even seen him move, picking Gregg up in his arms like he was a child.

"Never do that again!" Angus said, on the verge of tears. "I was so worried I-I"

"Mae!"

Gregg's voice was shot, he had been doing serious screaming. He pointed towards the snow frantically, "Mae" barely coming from his throat. Even breathing cold air must have been torture with his worn out throat.

At least, Mae was doing much worse.

Everyone but Gregg nearly jumped with shock when they saw what Gregg was pointing at, Mae was on the road, dragged by Gregg. On first impression, nearly her entire upper body was covered with blood. something had turned her right shoulder into hamburger. Bea swore she could see bone. The blood from the wound trailed into the forest, staining the snow red. Gregg had dragged her from quite a distance. 

"Oh God!"

"Get her in the car, now!" screamed Molly.

.....................................................................................................................................

Mae was about to get out of the hospital today. When she arrived, she had nearly bled out. Additionally, he had a deep bite on her upper shoulder that encompassed all of her right pectoral, her shoulder and upper bicep, and even her back muscles, teeth managing to puncture down to the bone. 

All things considered, she was lucky both to survive the blood loss, and to heal as well as she did. When she came in, her right shoulder area had been so mangled, that even at best, she would have lost a lot of motion, if not the entire shoulder and arm. To the doctor's surprise, the damage healed, no reconstruction required. All she would have to show for the attack would be some gnarly scars.

Her friends would even occasionally visit the hospital. it was the usual pleasantries, going through the motions. Bea would talk about what her friends were doing, and how that due to the recent cold weather, her dad's store had been doing quite well thanks to all the salt they sold.

'"Salt? wait, what!?" questioned Mae. "did you secretly sell food or something? and you never told me about it?"

"We carry salt so that people can melt the ice on their driveways."

"Really, how come I never knew this!?"

"You don't drive."

" _Oh_. At least now I know all those salt packets I saved from fast food places were worth something after all!"

Angus also took the time to visit Mae. The attack, although Mae didn't witness much of it, interested him.

Upon doing research, he found that wolves and bears are actually quite rare near possum springs, since previous generations of hunters had driven them out of state. In fact, the last wild wolf in their state died in 1892! The other choice for what attacked her, was the humble black bear. Strangely, black bears are quite smaller than the one she described, the largest one ever found being nearly eight feet tall. The way Mae described what attacked her, that bear would have been like a polar bear: nine to eleven feet tall. 

Mae liked all the neat bear facts, but she knew what she saw was not a bear.

"Like...it wasn't a bear."

"Then what was it?"

"Um...it was big...black....it had big teeth."

"I dunno, sounds like a bear to me. it was dark."

"You had to be there, you had to see it, trust me, it wasn't a bear."

"Well, you have to admit, that sounds a lot like a bear."

"how would you know?" Mae spoke before realizing. "oh, yeah."

Gregg was hurt less badly, but unlike Mae, he was still dealing with his wound. As Mae later found out, Gregg threw a lit stick of dynamite at the thing that attacked her to kill it. 

It tore a massive chunk out of the creature, and It ran off without killing Mae, but the explosion shattered both of Gregg's eardrums. Doctors said they would heal back in weeks, but Gregg was able to still have fun until then. Charades got them through the hospital stay. Neither ever even came close to successfully guessing what each other meant, but they had fun regardless.

Soon enough, Mae's parents were on their way to pick her up. She stood there in her old clothes. studying herself in a mirror, she saw that her favored shirt managed to cover up most of the bad scarring. Only a little peeked out from over the collar. The marks in her flesh and fur felt strange under the cotton shirt.

"Oh god, my baby!" Mae's mother cried out as she hugged her daughter in celebration.

"Don't get yourself mauled again, otherwise, who watch the Gabbo show with me!?" Mae's dad brought up, patting Mae on the head affectionately.

"Guys, I'm a grown adult, not a dumb baby" Mae protested, her dad joining the hug also.

"That's a parent’s job!" her mom explained "Embarrass their child at the worst possible moment."

"At least you finally admitted it." Mae noted, embarrassed but happy

Indeed, the day home and the rest of the day was also pretty good. Her parents asked her to stay inside for the day, and with her weeks in the hospital, Mae was more than happy to oblige. Even inside,doing nothing at all, it was a good day.

Until night came.

Mae was in bed. 

She suddenly remembered that the house was going to be sold/taken away because of the college she dropped out of. This wouldn’t be her last night there, but the day would come eventually.

She buried her face in her pillow. If it happened today, at least It’d be over with. Now it was just gonna hang over her head, getting closer and closer by the day.

She’d grown up here, she had her fondest memories with her grandpa here. Soon it’d be gone, some asshole would buy the house and tear it down to make condos or whatever banks do.

She wanted to do something stupid to lash out, but she just nearly died from doing something stupid. She just had to take it and let it kill her slowly like all the other schmoes in the world. 

She lived in a world of dead shapes, but there were some things she still cherished, things that weren’t shapes. Soon enough she’d be stranded in the shapes, nothing and no one there for her. 

She had been there for an hour now. 

It was midnight. She was warm. 

Outside was minus twenty degrees and her parents below were freezing even under double weighted blankets, but Mae was warm. She decided to forego her blankets. 

If anything, she got even warmer. 

That feeling of dissatisfaction had returned, it was like nails on a chalkboard, and she was getting warmer. By the time she had decided to go buck naked, she had begun to sweat buckets. The warmth was unbearable. she snuck outside, still warm. 

It was well below zero, even the sweat on her skin froze, but if anything, she was burning up. "Oh god." she thought, walking into empty, cold possum spring night. 

The burning had become pain, she was on fire, burning, she couldn't take it. She dove into snow, but the burning pain now shot through her spine into her very bones. 

"Am i dying?" she thought as she writhed in pain on the ground. By this point, her thoughts had lost coherency, her mind coming apart from the strain of the body.

"oh godshapes"

"anyone helpshapes"

"Moongod oh"

"shapesshpaessphapes"

"spapesmoonshpaemoon"

"nightmareyeygrandpahelpshapesmoomydaaddymoonohgodithurtsshapesmoonog"

The last thing she remembered was the moon. she stared at it, a brilliant white circle at the top of the sky as she fell through her own body into something she didn’t know.

...............................................................................................................................................

Rob knew possum springs was already pretty terrible for a homeless person. It was a small town, so people are already suspicious, there are very little places to sleep or hide, and no local resources like soup kitchens. Being there in the winter was truly the cherry on top of the shit sundae. He had to huddle uncomfortably close with two other guys in front of a trash fire.

"Truly is the winter of our discontent, huh guys?" said Rob, trying to spark a conversation with two other winos.

"Boo!"

"Nice Shakespeare reference"

"Shakespeare said that? I got that from a cartoon."

"I studied him in high school, ya know"

"Cool. whatever happened to that?"

"This." the wino waved his arms to show his current predicament.

"I’m sorry."

"Don't worry, I am too." the man responded. He may not have a home, but at least he kept his sense of humor.

"Shut it you two,” the other wino suddenly whispered. “ you hear that?"

Something was inching its way towards them. 

It was a...mass. 

It was a bizarre midnight blue, a dark inky blue, the kind between the stars. The comparison was reinforced by it's eyes, shining like stars in the middle of the midnight blue mass.

It growled, the kind they could feel shaking the metal they were sitting on.

Rob saw the mass inch forward, there was only one thing he got to say before he and the two other winos would be dead.

"Oh, shit."


	3. To Live is to be Sick

Whenever you really mess up, it's always a surprise when you find your parents either happy just to see you alive or simply disappointed in whatever idiocy you committed. 

Mae didn't know where she was at the moment, but she heard her parents, and they were MAD.

"What are you doing down there!?!" She heard her mother call, very angry.

Mae got up, only to realize two things, A. she was looking up at her parents through a hole in the backyard, and B. it was effing cold outside.

"W-what?" Mae stuttered, the sudden cold getting to her. it was only by that point that she realized that there was a C. She was buck naked.

"Oh, for god's sake. Stan, get her some clothes from inside!"

"Wait, she's naked down there?!"

"I-I am?" Mae still didn’t really know what happened. She walked outside last night because it was hot, but by now she was thinking that was a nightmare. She had some...bizarre ones over the autumn, but she never woke up _naked in a hole outside_ because of it. Closest thing was the eternity sauce at the donut wolf.

"Get her clothes! And Mae, you're grounded!"

"W-ait, I-I-I'm an Adult! The woman-child Mae called from the bottom of the hole, shivering in the cold.

Mae's mother glared at her from the edge of the hole, "No, you are very clearly not!"

Needless to say, Mae was pretty grumpy. It gets warm (relatively, at least) enough to walk and resume life, only to be grounded for two weeks. 

She sat in bed, covered in blankets like a pissed off cat burrito. At least she still had her laptop, some form of human communication. She was quite surprised to see that everyone of her friends (except Casey, of course) had messaged her during the early morning.

"YO MAE, THEY FOUND A MURDER SCENE"

"Mae, when you wake up. they found dead hobos"

"Mae, stay inside. I'll tell you later.

"Mae! I finally got those old horror comics! also there was a murder, be careful idk". (Mae had forgotten she added lori)

Each one was working off the same details: some kid found the corpses of hobos under a bridge. 

The three bodies showed evidence of being partially eaten, and that was all that was released so far.

Even her parents came in later to tell her what had been found. Mae knew that with a small town like this, the news was probably everywhere long before she woke up.

"You need to be careful out there! With this, and you getting lost and attacked in the woods, it's just not safe outside at the moment" Mae's father emphatically stated.

"Like, what? Is there a bear or wolf attacking the town?"

"Nobody knows. The annoying part is, until the police come back to let us know what it is, everyone will swear they saw bigfoot or something out of the corner of their eye." piped up Mae's mother.

"So, me being grounded didn't matter since we all have to stay inside?"

"Not exactly..." Mae's dad trailed off.

..............................................................................................................................................

Mae had never been to Garrity ranch before, mostly because it was located a decent distance from possum springs, and she only learned it just existed. The ranch didn’t produce much, it seemed to exist mostly so that it's former owner could brag they had a ranch. Though at the moment, it actually served a neat purpose.

Mae passed the small fires scattered around to warm the cold, sunny day. lots of fellow residents had even made makeshift grills, the new ranch owner having gone out of his way to buy large amounts of hot dogs, burger meats, etc. it was like a small festival, even quite a few town council members had come to partake in the festivities. her parents were out socializing, while Mae explored.

Quite a bit of townspeople were there. Mae even spotted Pastor Kate chatting with some guy, talking the usual Jesus saves stuff. Something about the will being strong and the flesh being weak. Mae mused that Jesus wasn't nearly as cool as that saint guy who breathed fire.

Mae tried enjoying a hot dog. She was more of a taco person, but hot dogs were good too. these were not. Mae kept whittling away at the dog, but it would not taste any better. come to think of it, she hadn't had any memories of tasting anything good ever since she got out of the hospital.

The ranch had a house, at the front gate. It was an old, plantation style house with a big porch for people to talk on. there seemed to be an auction going off, she saw some lady with a microphone point at a pile of a large variety of items. vintage furniture, vintage kitchen ware, a rather concerning amount of guns. 

Mae sneered in a corner, clearly whoever owned the ranch was a rich, establishment type. Ugh. Her spirits raised when to her surprise, she spotted Gregg and Angus looking at the pile of junk.

"You think he has the rest of the uniform? I found this extra pickle-gruber helmet, if he has another complete uniform, like, I might try and bid!"

"It's called a Pickelhaube, and we could probably bid for it, but we'd have to give up heating, water, food.."

"Just that? Sold!"

"Hi guys!" Mae interjected, "What's going on? What is all this stuff?"

Angus piped up "Guy who owned all this stuff is gone or something. His brother came and is selling a lot of it off. I think he's even selling the house"

Gregg piped "I wonder if they can give me a gun under the table?"

Angus quickly shot that down, "Oh no, not in our apartment!"

Gregg reassured, saying "Kidding, kidding, crossbow maybe, but not a gun. Anyway, the guy's inside, he showed me this helmet in there, nice guy!" 

Mae entered the house after the obligatory small chat. She felt bad that she never got to really apologize to both over what had happened, but sometimes it's better to let sleeping dogs lie, she thought as she entered the house. 

The house was an outright mansion. She would have been more dismissive, if most of everything hadn't been moved to be auctioned or covered in sheets, likely for a trip to the dump. Only some family photos and heirlooms stayed, sometimes being the only thing in a room. It gave Mae a sense of melancholy. Even the rich can't escape from everyone and everything leaving. Thanks to her college, soon her house would look like this too. Resentment grew in Mae, she looked from room to room, trying to find this jerk.

She found that jerk. The man was a goat, in his late 60's, and looking every bit of it. First impression he gave was a former hippie that was trying to reintegrate into society, with his long wizard beard and ponytail hair, both flaked with the grey streaks of age. His horns were large, but in an oddly respectful way. He was arms crossed leaning out the large window, a record player in the room playing some old song that her dad would probably like.

"Hello, the name’s Joseph Garrity.'' the goat said, not even turning to look, just knowing by instinct that someone was there. "Need help with something?"

"No, No." Mae repeated, flustered. "I just wanted to talk, see who was selling all this junk-i-mean-stuff." Mae corrected, not knowing how he'd react to his brother's stuff being called junk.

"Oh no, it's junk. no need to worry." The goat replied. "I can honor my brother in other ways, aside from praying to a marble slab or keeping his old stuff to rot."

"Were you close with him?"

"Yes and no. Mostly no, especially towards the last couple of years.”

“How come?”

“ It was the 60's, he voted for Nixon, and I was a Jimmy Carter democrat. Idiot never stopped voting for them even though they never did anything for him. Sometimes I honestly felt like strangling him. He supported the draft that would've sent me and him to Vietnam. I distinctly remember learning about the draft. It was awful, like learning you got your future ripped from you before it could even get a chance to happen. With all this global warming stuff going on, I imagine you can relate."

"More than you'd think, yeah." Mae sadly noted.

“Still, we were brothers. I moved to Michigan to get away from all the small town conservative bullshit, but I still came back every spring vacation. We had two common interests. Hunting and music. Hear that?"

> It's getting near dawn
> 
> When lights close their tired eyes
> 
> I'll soon be with you my love
> 
> Give you my dawn surprise
> 
> I'll be with you darling soon
> 
> I'll be with you when the stars start falling

"Recognize that?"

"Nope."

"Ever heard of Eric Clapton, Cream, Derek and the Dominoes?"

"Not really." Mae sheepishly replied "I'm not really an old music kinda person"

"Hmm, different strokes for different folks."

"Is hunting why he had that many guns?"

"Yeah, even back then, I thought it was excessive. He even had some explosives! You don't need an armory to hunt rabbits, I always told him. He always had the same response. He’d say they're not for the rabbits. if things in the world ever go south, if the world ends, I want something for me and my family to hang on to."

"He was a survivalist before it was cool?"

"Pretty much, yeah. If there's anything I can say for my brother, he was a family man first. Money run tight? he'd starve before another family member went with a light plate."

"Right wing thing aside, he sounds like a pretty nice guy? what happened to him?"

"He disappeared. last year."

"he did?"

"yeah. One October day, he just up and never came back from work. Same with a bunch of his old work buddies, and even some people that didn't even know him."

"Weird." Mae's stomach was curling into knots. she tried her best to keep it together, otherwise she might throw up at that moment. She put two and two together.

"Yeah. That's why I did the fundraiser, those people who disappeared, they certainly can't provide for their families anymore, and god knows I don't need the money. He's not legally dead yet, but he’d had been meaning to sell this stuff off, anyway. seemed like a good opportunity."

"That's terrible."

"I know. I miss him. It's true what they say, you never know what you'll miss until it's gone. You know what's especially weird?"

"What?"

"A day before he disappeared, something happened in the woods."

"Yeah?"

"Apparently, four kids went into the woods, into an old mine shaft or something. One got a bad concussion and got shot at or something."

"Really?" Mae's heart was beating faster than it ever had in her memory, and she hadn't even moved a muscle. _He knew. ___

____

"Probably, you know how rumors spread in this town. Perhaps they just went out for ice cream and one fell on his or her head. I'll have to ask someone to check. I mean, like I said, it's probably just nothing, but with those hobos that were murdered last night... I mean, you just never know."

____

"I think I'll have to go, parents want me back home soon. Have a great day mr Garrity, sorry for the loss." Mae said to the best of her abilities. He knew. He didn’t say it outright, he had no proof, but he knew.

____

"No problem. Thanks for the conversation, young lady!”

____

"y-yeah, thanks."

____

Mae nearly escaped the room before hearing, "Hey Mae!"

____

Mae's heart nearly stopped then and there. "what?"

____

"Make sure to appreciate your parents, honest. You'll never know when they'll be gone!"

____

"Got it, thanks!" Mae said without emotion before leaving.

____

She was rushing as fast as she could out. She still heard him yell, "Good bye, _killer_ ".

____

Mae left the room. 

____

Mae left the house. 

____

Mae left the ranch. 

____

She heard Gregg and Angus call out to her as she left, probably to talk, since they've been apart for so long, but nothing on earth could make Mae stay in that area.

____

She knew her parents would be enraged again that she ditched them again to walk home alone, Mae could take that. What Mae couldn't handle was that someone else knew. 

____

She had to stop at a tree on the side of the highway to throw up. It was getting late and she was still far from home. She got to the point where she just started dry heaving, nothing left to vomit.

____

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

____

Night and cold and darkness was coming fast. before Mae knew it, it was night. 

____

God damn it, she was lost _again_. What did she expect from walking home from a place she didn’t know, Mae thought, head in her hands.

____

It was cold and she felt sick.

____

The cult was in the past, she was gonna do her best to forget she trapped god knows how many people to starve to death.

____

It came back.

____

She got warm. 

____

It was cold but she was sweating. 

____

She looked up at the moon.

____

It was a crescent moon. it was beautiful. 

____

She looked at it then suddenly pain shot through every last inch of her. It was like a full body cramp. She laid down in pain, face up to the sky, to the moon. 

____

She felt horrible, terrible change coming, change that would unravel her mind like a cheap napkin. 

____

As she spasmed in pain, feeling her body, herself change to something horrible, she had a moment of crystal clear realization before passing out.

____

____

"Oh god, I'm a werewolf."

____


	4. Gloomy, Disorderly, and Solitary

Jeff grumbled. 

He needed to visit his brother, so he drove all the way from NJ to this little obscure corner of nowhere, the flyover chunk of Pennsylvania. He was support to find his brother at some stupid town meetup, but by the time he got there, even the guy who organized the thing left. All that he found there was two parents waiting for their shithead kid or something.

To make matters worse, his car broke down, so now he was marooned in his car on the side of the highway. He'd go out to push the car, but it was below zero outside, so to hell with that!

Now he just sat in his car, huddled up in the cold like an asshole. The benzos helped him relieve the stress of his situation, but he was still cold. His brother would no doubt be disappointed to know he was on them again, but for god's sake, when was he ever around for the support?

It had to be early in the morning, but it was just too cold to sleep, he was also afraid the benzos could accidently kill him in the night, he almost died before because he was stupid enough to mix it with alcohol.

He was bored. 

There was nothing in the car. 

There was nothing visually interesting around, just trees and snow. 

Until he caught something out of the corner of his eye.

Something....something was now near the car, all he saw in the darkness were two shimmering lights. Either this was a big bear with laser eyes or something, or a car. 

He realized it was eyes when a paw punched through the car frame like tissue paper and sent 5 knife sized claws into his chest and ripped him out of the car.

...............................................................................................................................................

Mae woke up. she felt something in her teeth. she was in an empty field, close to possum springs. At some point in time, someone put a blanket over her. She was wearing nothing else, and upon further inspection, the blanket was actually a discarded shag carpet. What the hell happened and who helped her!?

She got her answer: it was Germ! He was walking to her carrying clothes over his shoulders.

"Hi"

"....Hello"

"I found you naked in a field. I put a carpet over you to keep you warm"

"Thanks, sorry about that"

"No worries. I got clothes."

Mae went into the town. 

She was grateful not to have had to run around naked, but Germ brought her his dad's work clothes, so she had to crawl around in baggy clothes that did nothing for the cold, and had no shoes.

She decided it would probably be best to go to Bea's house for a while, say that Bea needed personal help or something. If the cold didn't kill her, her parents would if she tried going straight home. Better to go to the ol' pickaxe.

She entered, glad to no longer have to walk on ice cold snow all the way here. She took the rare moment to take in the environment, the smell of iron and balsa wood, the weird chemical smell of plastic and cleaning solution used on the concrete floor. Even the smell of the turgid smell of the turquoise wall paint, which has probably been there since the 80's. She turned to look at Bea at her usual place at the cashier desk thingy. She was talking to someone.

It was Joe Garrity.

Because of course.

"Sorry about your guy, I know what it's like to-"

He turned around to see Mae. Mae froze, realizing that the chance to run out had passed.

"Hey, it's you!" he snapped his fingers as if the name was on the tip of his tongue, but she knew he knew. "The girl from yesterday! Mae! Where were you? Your parents were worried sick! Do they know you're safe?" 

"Y-yeah. I-they got preeety mad" said Mae. "Bea, can I talk to you for a moment?"

"This isn't the best time-"

"Is something wrong?" asked Garrity. "If you're having problems, I can always-"

"Something is wrong, but you can't help with it"

"Why not?"

"It's uh......” Mae had to think. What would make him piss off?

“A period problem. Yeah, girls only."

"Oh, gotcha, sorry." Garrity said, retreating.

Before Bea could even protest, Mae ushered her into the backroom.

"Mae, I don't have tampons! This is a hardware sto-"

"Forget the period, it's something else."

"I have to deal with something, I'm busy and today is a _really _bad day-"__

____

Mae did something she never did, grab Bea by the collar, to show her she was dead serious.

____

"HE KNOWS."

____

"Knows what? What does he know?"

____

“His brother, disappeared one day"

____

"Yeah?"

____

"His brother was a miner, retired. He disappeared the day we met the cult"

____

It clicked immediately in Bea’s mind what she was talking about. "Are you sure? Maybe his brother-"

____

"Bea, for god's sake, I talked with the guy, he knows!" Mae said, panicked. "He threatened me without ever making a threat, he knows!"

____

Bea looked through the window, Garrity was still there, gawking at the hammers. He seemed like a normal guy.

____

"So, what do we do?"

____

"I don't know! I don't know what he'll do!" Mae stressed.

____

Garrity opened the back door, but only a crack, just to see Bea.

____

"Sorry, got to run. sorry to hear about your handyman."

____

As Garrity left, Mae asked "Handyman?"

____

Bea sighed, responding: "One of our handymen's brothers died. They found him attacked by an animal on the side of a car. second murder in two day's, geeze."

____

Mae felt a pit in her stomach. _that was her. she killed someone._ That in mind, those three hobos were probably her also.

____

Mae threw up. Sick to her stomach knowing that she might have killed someone. 

____

"Oh #%#% god!"

____

Mae looked at what she threw up. Her feet were covered in brilliant red blood. almost cartoonishly red blood. _It wasn't her blood._

____

She looked up at Bea, both staring at each other in horror, a trickle of red going down Mae's mouth.

____

Mae ran. She liked Bea. Bea was her best friend. She didn't want her to die. She heard Bea call out her name as she ran out the door. The snow sent a chill up her spine as jumped feet first without shoes. Mae had to ignore it. Keep running. Don't stop, don't think, run.

____

It was like her future was ripped from her. She couldn't be a werewolf. She didn't want people to die, especially people she liked and loved. She had to run, get away from possum springs, get lost, become a hermit. 

____

But..

____

She loved her friends, she didn't want to see them go. she couldn't imagine her life without them. but if she stayed, people, _innocent people would die_. she felt like she was going crazy.

____

................................................................................................................................................

____

After what must have been the tenth time, Lori decided to pick up the "caller unknown" person calling her it was sunset, and they'd been calling since two in the afternoon. She'd assumed it was a scam, or at least a very persistent one.

____

"Hello? i-is Lori there?"

____

"Oh, hello Mae! Where are you calling from?"

____

"Payphone."

____

"They still have those?"

____

"I found this one, at least, there's another at the bus station, but someone stole the phone."

____

"Wow, what animals"

____

"Yeah, that's nice. do you know anything about werewolves?"

____

"I love werewolves! The Wolfman, An American Werewolf in London, The Howling and all its sequels-"

____

"That's nice, nice-nice. You know if in the movies these people werewolves can be cured?"

____

"Hmm." Lori thought. That question had to pull deep into her monster movie memories.

____

"Not to my memory, honestly"

____

"Really?"

____

"They almost always die. In the Lon Chaney Jr Wolfman movies, he even spent most of the moves looking not for a cure, just a way to die in peace."

____

"Oh..."

____

"I mean, there’s a ton of werewolf media. I can try looking for one where a werewolf gets cured or something. Honestly, I don't see why you'd want to, I'd love turning from an ordinary, normal person to some horrible creature of the night."

____

"i think it wouldn't be all it's cracked up to be."

____

"Why do you ask? Mae, are you a werewolf now?" Lori jokingly asked.

____

"Yep, werewolf, I eat babies and sheep, haha. rawr."

____

"Careful out there killer! No seriously, be careful, an animal attacked someone."

____

"Oh, trust me I will."

____

Mae hung up without even saying bye.

____

It was getting dark fast. 

____

She was shivering from the cold.

____

She had to keep walking, away from town, away from humanity*, everything she had ever known.

____

She felt like her life was in effect over. It was just the wait for death by this point. For now, though, she just needed to keep walking. 

____

It was dark. her stomach hurt. She hadn't eaten all day, but she probably couldn't keep anything down anyway.

____

She heard a car stop behind her. She didn't know how far she was from town. who was-

____

Mae didn't even have time to finish that thought as a rock hit her in the back of the head. She collapsed in pain.

____

"Shit!"

____

"Are you crazy, you could have killed her!"

____

"I meant to hit her in the back, like, she was probably gonna run!"

____

Gregg was right, a dazed Mae attemped to get up before Gregg caught her.

____

"No you don't!"

____

Mae panicked and struggled, desperate to escape she began to scream no, repeatedly, trying to worm her way out.

____

Angus came in, Gregg didn't have the heft to pick her up, but Angus did.

____

"I got her, I got her-Mae, stop struggling!"

____

Bea came in, opening the side doors of her dad's old truck, where they were gonna place Mae.

____

"How long have you been out here!?"

____

"Let me go!" screamed Mae, she kicked and fought like an animal, but the cold sapped her strength. "Let me go, please! You-you-you don't know!"

____

"What happened to her!?" asked Angus. he'd never seen Mae like this before

____

"I don't know.” said a concerned Bea. “She vomited blood. Then ran off."

____

Gregg was handling Mae by her shoulders. He felt something warm run down his arm when grabbing her head.

____

"Oh shit, guy's she's bleeding!"

____

"We need to get her to a hospital!"

____

"NO! No hospital, I'll be fine, no, no no!"

____

"Get her in, get her in!'' Bea screamed, Mae tried to hold on to the edges of the car frame, but they were eventually successful in getting Mae in.

____

"How far are we from the hospital!?" Bea franticly asked

____

"Far, we need to go now-" Angus said, before being interrupted by the sound of shattering glass. He looked behind himself, only to see half of Mae's body sticking through the window, Gregg holding on to her legs.

____

"Guys, help!"

____

"Did she break my window!?" screamed Bea.

____

Angus got out of the car to stuff Mae back in. "Yes, yes she did."

____

................................................................................................................................................

____

It was a long drive back to town. It started snowing also. Very bad weather to drive to the hospital.

____

Additionally, after several break out attempts by an increasingly desperate Mae. Her friends ultimately decided to go to Bea's house, then wait there until an ambulance arrived.

____

Mae had finally tired out.

____

Her friends were not taking any chances, though. Everyone had a hand on Mae, to try and keep her from breaking free. They had to leave the car doors open as they walked to the front door, no point in even risking the chance. Bea wound up having to knock on the door with her head.

____

"Dad, it's Bea! let me in!"

____

"What happened!? What-" is all Bea's father managed to say before Bea and the rest barged in, Mae in their arms.

____

"It's Mae, she's sick. She keeps trying to wriggle loose, we need to-"

____

Mae began to feel warm. She knew that would be it. This was her last chance. As they clumsily walked through the door. She got to see into the kitchen.

____

They had that thing that you put the knives into so that only the handle stuck out. Mae didn't know the name of it, but she saw sticking halfway through was a large kitchen knife, silver shining from even the living room.

____

This would be Mae's last shot.

____

She summoned some energy she didn't even know she had to punch Angus right square in the face. She thought she broke his glasses or his nose, but she couldn't be sure.

____

That was enough for not only Angus to let go, but even cause Gregg's and Bea's grip to loosen, letting Mae make a run for it, into the kitchen, no time to think. 

____

She grabbed the knife, seeing her reflection in it for less than a second. 

____

She aimed at her neck, ready to die.

____

…

____

She couldn't do it.

____

She just couldn't do it.

____

Mae sighed as her friends were seconds away from running into her, tackling her to get the knife from her hands.

____

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> * author's note: they are apparently animal people, no metaphor, but apparently in the og game, someone brings up humanity. @bombsfall says it might mean something different in the universe. IDK.
> 
> Authors note 2: the quickening: If you're reading this and you feel suicidal, please, for god's sake, or at least for my sake, talk to the national suicide prevention hotline. https://suicidepreventionlifeline.org/


	5. Loathsomely Blood-Thirsty

................................................................................................................................................

It was a different time. It should have seemed like yesterday, but with all the time and change that happened in between, it honestly felt like eons ago. 

Things were better then, no wars, no bad economy, no one had left yet. Grandpa was still alive.

It was a lazy Sunday afternoon, sunlight streaming in through the window, painting the room a warm yellow. It was hot outside, but from inside, all the warmth just made Mae feel vaguely sleepy. Her head laid on grandpa’s lap, as a mix of blues and folk filed the air.

> There is a house in New Orleans
> 
> They call The Rising Sun
> 
> And it's been the ruin of many a poor boy
> 
> And God, I know I'm one
> 
> My mother was a tailor
> 
> She sewed my new blue jeans
> 
> My father was a gamblin' man
> 
> Down in New Orleans.

“My dad knew the song when he was a coal miner, and so did I.” Her grandpa explained. “It was one of those things that got passed around the country. It was old when my grandpa sang it, and it was even older when I sang it in the mines with the rest of the guys.”

“The song doesn't seem that old, the one on the radio” said Mae so long ago. She was so small then.

“Some British band in the 60’s made their version of it, and that became the version that everyone knows.”

Mae’s father piped up from a chair in the corner. Mae remembered that by then he was quitting his drinking, but had been out for so long that when he joined in with Mae and his grandpa, he just seemed out of place. “I remember that from that movie, Casino, like, 5 years ago?”

“It shows up everywhere now, but at least I remember that it was roots that are older than you or I.”

“Why’s that so important?” Mae asked, still so innocent.

Grandpa thought for a bit, before saying: “When you get older, you like to hang on to things. That’s why old guys like me talk about old wooden escalators and other stuff that doesn't matter. It leaves you grounded in something you recognize.”

Mae didn’t remember the rest of the day, just that short conversion and that song.

She didn’t know where she was. She felt sick, like she was dying.

In her sweat, as everything that made her who she was was slipping from her grasp, she remembered at least that.

She was adrift, alone in her body. Soon she’d be gone. Like asleep, but no dreams. The last thing she could comprehend before she was lost to something primal was that song. She never bothered to listen to it again, it wasn’t her type, but it remained.

> Oh mother, tell your children
> 
> Not to do what I have done
> 
> Spend your lives in sin and misery
> 
> In the House of the Rising Sun

................................................................................................................................................

Bea's father saw Mae lay on the couch, arms and leg zip tied to prevent movement. She was writhing in pain, and sweating buckets, she soaked past her crummy clothes and was leaving wet spots on the couch. She was mumbling something, but he couldn't understand it. Outside the snow continued to fall.

"Your friend Mae, is she okay?"

"I don't know, we called the hospital, but now that it's snowing hard and there’s ice on the road, I don't know if they'll be here at all. You okay there, Angus?" said Bea.

"She broke my glasses. I won't lie, I'm a little mad. But what the hell got into her?” Angus said, gluing his glasses back together.

"No idea. She's been acting strange ever since she got attacked by that animal a while back."

"I think I know." Gregg piped up. 

Gregg almost always had an energy to his voice, being an excited guy, the only exception being his "down" days. 

Today, he was dead serious.

"Remember when she…" Gregg had to think, no one else knew they were chased. "...Hit her head last year?"

"That night, she confessed to me that she..." He had to put real thought into this. Mae told only him about this. He had to say this without making her seem crazy, because she wasn’t, but Gregg knew he wasn’t the best at words.

"I don't know how to describe it. She's not crazy, definitely not that. but she has this thing. She says that she sees the world as shapes."

"Shapes?" 

"Yeah, shapes." Gregg continued. "She said it was like finding out everything was a lie I think. remember that kid she beat up? How everyone called her killer because of that? It was because she thought that everything was shapes and that meant nothing was real. Because everything was just shapes, that meant she was alone. She hated college because she saw everything as shapes, and that meant she was alone and that there was nothing to catch her. She could only sleep because she'd down cough syrup-"

Bea Piped up, "Why did she never tell us this!?"

"I can understand.” Angus said. “Sometimes when you have a problem that you have no control over. Your brain struggles to understand why is this happening to you. Eventually you just blame yourself and try to keep it all inside."

"Maybe the stress from keeping it all in, maybe she just snapped or something“ suggested Gregg.

“But then what about the blood?” asked Bea.

“A doctor can tell us what's going on.“ reasoned Angus. “We just need to keep observing her for now, make sure her condition doesn’t worsen."

The 4 stood there. the conversation had dried up, all that was left now was to wait for that ambulance.

Bea's father looked at the clock. Time went fast. Seconds away from midnight.

It was time.

Everyone jumped to attention when Mae started screaming all of a sudden. She was jerking around violently on the couch. She was in horrible pain.

"Oh crap!"

"That's Mae! Quick-"

Angus was the first to get to Mae, ready to pin her down if she tried escaping. He thought Mae had simply gotten a second wind.

Mae broke the zip-ties on her hand and legs, falling off the couch. Bea's dad saw her tear through them like tissue paper and remembered once he worked with someone who had bad seizures. People having seizures had to be isolated, because their body was expending all the body's strength, the guy he knew once broke his teeth from biting too hard while having a seizure. Remembering that, he rushed to get Angus away, she might seriously hurt him. 

He didn't know how right he was. 

Angus tried to grab Mae by the arm, calm her down. Next thing he knew, he felt and heard a rib on his left side snap like balsa wood as the world became a blur. When he got up, he realized that he was somehow thrown across the room.

"Don't, stop!'' Bea's father yelled, keeping Gregg and Bea away using his arms. "She's having a seizure, don't go near her!"

It wasn't a seizure. 

What was happening to her at that moment could only be described as a full body cramp/spasm. Even from ten feet away, both Bea and Gregg could see Mae's exposed skin, even her face, pulse, bulge and contract. It was like the muscles under her skin gained a life of their own and wanted nothing more than to be out.

It was scary, seeing a close friend change like that, become something they're not. Gregg ran back to the phone, dialing the phone in record time. As he waited anxiously, he saw Mae begin to swell, her clothes struggling to contain the flesh, which grew and grew before his very eyes.

"Gregg, call the hospital!" Bea yelled.

"I'm trying, I'm trying!" he screamed back, squeezing the phone in his hand as the dial tone mocked him.

Angus was re-gaining his senses, a sharp pain in his left side, the rib. At this point, he was still willing to believe that Mae was suffering a very severe seizure, or something like that.

His mind changed when he saw Mae, on her knees, upper body shooting upwards in pain. 

Angus saw her spine violently protrude backwards from her body, he could even see the individual vertebrae. He saw her spine _break itself_ , the vertebrae shooting in different directions like a zig zag. Her spine then reformed itself, thicker and taller than before. All of this happened in only a second before the protruding spine was buried under rope like-muscles and thick fur.

It was at this moment, Angus realized that Mae wasn't the one in danger, they were.

"Run, Run!'' Angus screamed, getting up. Bea's father, Bea, and Gregg were quickly convinced to run when Mae, in her throes of change, punched a hole into the wooden floor that was bigger than any of their heads.

Bea's father, Mr. Santello, loved his kid. After his wife, Bea was all he had left. Lots of days he could barely even get off the couch. 

Bea proved herself, she ran the store now, and she ran it well! At the same time, he knew Bea always wanted to leave, make something of herself beyond what was in this town. It ate at him that his inability to work kept Bea from being what she wanted to be. 

If he could ever be a good father, it would have to be now. 

It'd been so long since he had fought for anything.

"Bea, Gregory, Angus, get to the car outside, go!"

The keys were in the kitchen. With Mae becoming something else, every continued moment in the house was dangerous. Bea, Gregg, and Angus were running to the car, Mr. Santello ran in to get the keys. 

Mae, or at least the thing that was using Mae's flesh, had finished its metamorphosis.

It rose on its hind legs. It was to Mae what a lion is to a kitten. Mae was a person, a cat, but human enough nonetheless. 

This was something else entirely. 

It was primal, burly, bestial. It was almost as much of a gorilla as much a cat. thick continental plates of muscle hidden by a slick sheet of midnight blue fur. Mae was normally a dark, navy blue, the new fur this creature had shone blue in the light, and stayed black in the dark. One of the few things that remained from Mae was her red-dyed hair, her clipped ear, and her eyes, her large nightmare eyes. It is said eyes are the windows to the soul, and while those eyes were undeniably Mae's eyes, those unlucky enough to see them up close saw that there was no one on the other end. All you'd see was light reflecting on her eyes: two stars in the middle of an inky blue-black mass.

Mr. Santello scurried out the living room as the creature rose.

It wanted him dead.

If Mr. Santello was a second late, he would have died, as he got out the door the moment the creature slammed against the doorframe. 

He heard it, but he dared not turn back, otherwise he'd waste the valuable seconds he had to run. 

He was in the front car seat, haphazardly jamming the keys into the ignition, as the others heard what sounded like an explosion.

The creature tore through the front door frame, wood, brick, and plaster flying, part of the roof over the former doorframe even sagging and cracking due to the newfound lack of support.

The car's tires were running, sliding on the snow before it found a precious piece of friction to launch itself backwards with.

Mr. Santello had been in snow accidents before, he knew that it would be easy to lose control and slide into a crash. they had no choice this time, because the creature had sniffed them out, and was on the spot where the car was on the driveway before. it could quickly close the gap.

Indeed, when he turned the car to go straight on the road, the creature took a quick swipe, and tore part of the car's back windows and roof with its claws.

"Go faster, go faster!" screamed Gregg.

The car managed to gain speed down the road. If it slipped on the ice, that would be the end. the creature was deceptively fast, it ran on all fours, and was quickly closing the gap. 

The most dangerous part about driving on snow roads was the fact that, as a child could tell you, snow=slippery.

Lord knows how many accidents happened in possum springs, let along the rest of the world, because someone got too greedy at a turn and wound up sliding into a house or a taco stand. 

Only those with experience had any hopes of driving in snow.

Mr. Santello had experience. 

In his younger, fitter, slimmer days before his wife, he was somewhat of a juvenile delinquent. tell him not to do something, he'd do it all the same, just for the opportunity to say eff you dad! Driving fast on snow was one of those things he was told not to do, thus, he did so. not only did he do it, but with practice, he even got good at it. He was always good with numbers and on the fly calculation, which came in useful as a handyman, but also helped with guessing how much he could slide before the point of no return.

There was a corner up ahead. He knew he could do this.

On the wet, slippery ice, he could control the slide just enough to not crash.

He turned the wheel, and silently and quickly prayed as the car kicked up snow. He heard screaming, Bea and the other two boys, likely thinking he was gonna crash.

He came less than an inch away from jumping the curb. But he barely managed to pull it off.

The same could not be said for the creature.

It attempted to dig its claws into the ground to keep itself sliding, but all it latched onto was snow and ice. it went over the curb, into a ditch that led to a forested area.

..........................................................................................................................................

Mr. Santello had been driving for thirty minutes straight before anyone felt safe enough to speak.

"Dad. How did you do that!?"

"I raced when I was younger. I'd say I'm lucky I wasn't killed, but today it saved both of us."

"Kudos, Mister Santello," Angus said, still shaken.

"Are we just gonna ignore what happened!"

Gregg was mad, uncharacteristically mad. One of his beast friends had turned into a horrible monster before his eyes, and they were avoiding it! "Mae..what do we do?"

Bea replied "What can we even do? We just learned werewolves apparently existed."

"Oh, don't even start with that!" Angus said, stained. Adrenaline had dulled the pain from the rib, but now that he was safe, it really began to hurt.

"What the hell would you call, like, what we just saw? " 

"A shared hallucination, something!"

"I don't think hallucinations can throw you across a room! They also can't destroy my front door like that! they also-"

"I get it, I get it!" an embittered Angus replied. " To tell you the truth, I was already emotionally and physically drained from trying to find Mae all day, and now I got a broken rib and just learned that the supernatural exists!”

"Or at least just werewolves." 

"Werewolves, vampires, whatever! I depend on hard research and logic, so I might as well have just learned that everything I know is wrong! Forgive me for clinging on to sense!"

Everyone stayed silent for a moment. now that the excitement was over, the chill of the night was really starting to come in. Eventually Bea's dad finally spoke up.

"I don't know anything about anything, especially at this moment, but I know we need to get this young man to a hospital. Tomorrow, we can figure out something."

Gregg wanted to argue, scream, yell, _do something_. He was also tired. He looked at the moon outside. Tomorrow. 

Tomorrow. 

Tomorrow...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There now follows a brief intermission. In other words, I've been posting chapters on a day by day basis. Gonna take a short break to write the last chapter, then look over the entire second half. Be Back Soon!


	6. Pleasure of Despair

It was a cold, yet bustling and busy mid January.

The town had had a sudden, temporary injection of life, and Lori spent it like any 14 year old girl would spend it: staying inside with blankets over the windows reading about werewolves.

Mae's random questions a week ago sparked a re-interest in werewolf stuff, movies, tv, books, etc. She had been having fun bingeing all the classics while doing some research on how the myth of the werewolf came from.

The Beast of Gévaudan was one she was reading at the moment. Said Beast of Gévaudan was a wolf...thingy that attacked tons of people in mid 1700s France. While the attacks were alas most likely caused by multiple wolves, the beast had even been declared dead multiple times before, there actually was a fascinating final beast.

In 1767, some guy had finally seemingly killed the beast, using silver bullets. The beast was then mounted and toured around the nation of france, where people could draw it. If the drawings were in any way accurate, it really was a strange creature. It was more greyhound than wolf: long legs, lean, with a thin face with a wide mouth. It also had a long tail with a tuft at the end, and black stripes.

It was a fun little chapter of history, with everyone taking bounties to try and kill the _Napoleon Bonaparte of wolves_ , as Robert Louis Stevenson put it (for his part, he claimed it was a normal wolf, and a small one at that).

It was like _Jaws_ , but with a werewolf.

Or just a wolf.

Perhaps a striped hyena? Who knows.

The jaws comparison seemed especially apt, as the outside of possum springs resembled the midpoint of that movie: dozens of hunters, amature hunters, and wannabe hunters were out and about, bringing money and overall stinking up the place.

A few days ago, a CCTV camera at the Ham Panther captured a "superbear", an abnormally large bear.

Superbear alone wouldn't have bought much attention on it's own, if it wasn't for the five grizzly murders that could be traced to it: two paramedics, stuck in the snow, a hobo, an elderly vet, and the grandson of the guy two owns the click clack. 4 other people also found mauled in the intervening time.

With a murder bear on the loose, everyone who thought they could hold a gun was out to try and hunt it, even bored people from out of town were coming in to find glory by killing a bear. Legally speaking, most people here were only here for the fur trapping season, but with a superbear on the loose, "self defense was a must!"

Three "hunters'' below especially were interrupting Lori's werewolf time with their obnoxious laughing. She removed the blanket to see what the hell was going outside.

"So, you're telling me the monster took your clothes?" some fat rhino guy in neon hunting gear said.

"No!" said some tall rhesus monkey guy, who to Lori's dismay, was naked in his underwear. He was shivering. "But someone took my clothes, while I was sleeping, and I swear I'm gonna find out who!"

"You're right, we shouldn't make fun of Earl, he said it wasn't a bear," said the third guy, rounding out the trio by being a short turtle. "Clearly, Dracula's in season!"

Rhino guy laughed heartily, adding "No, no, it was the Mummy!"

"It was Frankenstein!"

"It was the Phantom of the opera!"

"Eff you two!" yelled the monkey man, storming off. "I gotta find my apartment."

"Tell us if you find the Gill man, we'll make a mint!" yelled the turtle guy, sending him and the rhino guy into a laughing fit. Lori once again put up the thick blankets on the window, just thinking "tourists" in a disappointed manner as she blocked out the world once again.

.............................................................................................................................................

Every passing day, Candy got more and more scared. Her daughter had always been a bit of a brat. Once, she went missing, sending the town into a three day long manhunt before they found her stuck in the crawl space. Countless times, she probably would have even gone to juvie if it wasn't for Molly bailing her out.

This was different.

She had nearly died twice in the past months, and was now gone for a week and counting.

Candy was scared. Scared that Mae might never come back. Scared that Mae might be found dead in a ditch somewhere, alone and cold. Scared that she might not see her daughter alive again. Scared that the stress of all this stress might make Stan relapse.

She heard a knock on the door.

She had been disappointed every knock. she prayed that when she opened that door, she'd see Mae, safe and sound, like nothing happened. What frighted her the most was seeing Molly there, hat in hand, come to bring where they found her only daughter's remains.

Despite all the good or bad that could be on the other end, she still had to open it.

She didn't even bother saying “who is it?” She just wanted to rip the proverbial band aid off.

She saw who was outside.

Stan was upstairs. He'd gone up to brush his teeth, but he'd been staring at a photo for what felt like hours.

It was his dad with a young Mae. She adored him, with his knowledge of mythology and mining stories. It reminded him of himself when he was her age, that man could weave quite that story.

She'd love hearing about the constellations, and the stories that people came up with to explain them. She'd laugh, cry, scream, it was better than tv for her.

By now of course, dad had been dead for years, and he spent precious years of his daughter growing up at the bottom of a bottle.

He felt guilty. Mae was so attached to his dad. Now he was dead, and they were all now directionless, Mae most of all. If only he-

"Stanley!" Candy yelled from downstairs. "Get down here, quick!"

He ran downstairs, when he could hear her crying, he ran faster.

It was Mae.

Candy hugged her in tears. Mae was in hunting clothes and she smelled horrible even from the stairs.

He ran to hug anyway, tears in his eyes.

...........................................................................................................................................

They sat in the kitchen, Mae on the countertop.

"Where have you been!"

"You've been gone for a week!"

"We were so worried!"

"Aunt Molly's been going mad trying to find you!"

"Why-"

"Where-"

"Can I get a word in?! Or what?!" Mae yelled.

Her parents were quiet for a moment, before Stan asked politely "So, where on earth were you?!"

Mae thought for a bit. She had never been the kind of person to plan something. She came here just to reassure her parents, she was okay, then find a way to hide herself away again. She had no answer to where she had been.

"I, uh.."

"I've been with Gregg and Angus, they needed to go out to their apartment in Bright Harbor. I came with them to help them, and I forgot to phone home."

She knew they didn't really buy it, but that excuse only had to hold out for the day.

"How could you forget to tell us!?"

"I'm, um…kinda stupid. But yeah, no need to fear, Mae is here!"

"It's nice to know you're alright dear." Mae's mom said. " _But never do that again_." she almost hissed.

"You pull a stunt like that again, you will not be allowed in this house again!" Mae's father added, genuinely angry. "Do you wanna be out there in the cold!?"

Mae had to keep herself from snapping back "I HAVE been out there in the cold". She hated being yelled at, but if she wanted any chance of not burning this bridge, she just had to take the verbal lashings.

Indeed, they berated, talked down to, and patronized her for quite a bit, Mae just having to take it. At the end of it: no internet, no tv, no friends. She had to stay at home for four weeks: the only exception would be if she was dying or got a job. If Mae's eyes could roll any harder, they'd bore out the back of her head.

At the very least, they'd gone back around to lovey dovey.

Then the doorbell rang.

"Stan? Candy? hello?"

Mae hoped she'd misheard that voice.

"Joe Garrity ? Come in, doors open!" her dad called.

Indeed, there he was, that goat motherless eff-er, joe Garrity , all in hunting gear. Mae didn't bother to notice, but Garrity's hunting gear was vintage, 70's-80's. They looked all scratched up, but that was only because he eventually ran out of space after marking a kill. He was the best hunter in town, only next to his deceased brother.

"Mae! Long time no see, your parents were worried sick!"

Mae turned to her mother, asking anxiously "what is he doing here!?"

"He's been a great help to us the whole time. While you were gone, he's been helping us by looking for you in the forest for hours and hours the last few days!"

"That's the thing about the forests." Garrity spoke. "Sometimes you just kinda disappear, to never be found again. Glad to see you here and not there though."

Mae felt the implied threat. She just had to take it.

"We just grounded her because of it!"

"She's an adult, she has to behave like one!"

Mae had to kick herself in the shin to keep from mouthing off.

"Honestly. I think you two are being unfair to her."

Mae paused for a bit, surprised by Garrity's sudden defense.

"You don't know what she's going though, when I was a kid, I was just like her. Aimless, directionless, nowhere to go. The world I knew was changing before my eyes and I would have given anything to stop it. Things were happening in my life that I do not look back fondly on. I also would just disappear from my parent's place. I know what it's like!"

Mae's parents were shocked by this man's genuine defense of their daughter.

"Well, she has to have some kind of punishment." Mae's dad mused.

"I've been in her shoes, punishing her like that will only make her act out more. You don't deal with an infected limb by cutting it off. You deal with it using antibiotics."

"Well, what do you suggest?" Mae's mother asked.

"I heard from talk around town that your little girl got some kind of head injury late last year, right?"

Mae's heart went from still to beating out of her chest. her stomach felt like it fell through her, presumably falling to the core of the earth.

"Yeah?"

"I feel that she might have some trauma from those events that have led us to this moment."

Garrity put his hands on Mae's shoulders, in a reassuringly fatherly way, her mother and father flanking him from left and right.

"Mae. Tell us the truth. Tell us what happened that night and the night after."

Mae refused to answer. She felt like her body was gonna collapse into itself, like a black hole.

"Running from it won't solve your problems. You're in a safe place. So tell us. What happened?"

Mae felt things there were no words for. no good words anyway.

"You're among friends! Please, you keep it inside you forever, it'll rot you from the inside."

"Your brother was a piece of shit who clung on to the past at the expense of everyone around him. I'm glad that fucking asshole is dead."

Mae snapped. or at least he thought she did, she thought saying that angry statement would relieve her of the strain. No. It was like saying that opened the door to more strain than her body could handle. She started shivering violently. Every microsecond felt like the strain was piling on her, like the weight of the world's ocean was focused directly on her head.

Mae couldn't think coherently. She heard her parents saying something, presumably angry at her statements, but she couldn't understand it.

Garrity hugged Mae, placing his mouth near her ear, piercing the cloud around her mind.

"Family and friends are important. _Don't make me take them away from you_."

Garrity hit the wall hard enough to break through the plaster into the foundations. It knocked the wind from his lungs, but the claws around his throat only let him make a gurgling sound.

 _ **YOU TOUCH THEM YOU SO MUCH AS LOOK AT THEM I WILL RIP YOU APART**_ Mae roared. not spoke. _roared_.

The only thing that prevented Mae from squeezing his head like a grape until it burst was a good look in a nearby mirror.

The baggy, loose fitting hunting gear she had worn had become filled to the point of exploding, seams bursting along the back, legs, and arms. To say she looked like a football linebacker would be inaccurate. She looked like that thing that would eat a linebacker. her teeth and claws had grown to a feral degree. What truly horrified her was the look of animalistic hatred on her eyes, a look she'll take to her grave. She was a monster, not a monster of creation or of the natural world, or even of the unnatural world. She was a creature of hate. A silent resentment towards everything that grew to consume her mind. The real problem though? She was turning. _In broad daylight._

She launched herself backwards into the living room sofa, breaking it in the process. She had to keep it in. Compress it back in, otherwise she'd kill everyone. Garrity fought for his breath back in the corner.

Her parents were horrified, seeing what their daughter had become in the blink of an eye. But despite everything, no matter what beast she became, though, she was still their daughter.

"Mae?" her father asked, to this thing that was his daughter.

 _ **G-GET AWAY**_ Mae roared.

Mae ran. The hardwood door was closed and locked. She broke through the door, reducing it to splinters, even taking some brick with it. She ran. she pushed, she shoved, she trampled, she _threw_. Anywhere else but here. Anywhere else.


	7. Variety of Sensations

The streets of Possum Springs were surprisingly busy, lots of out of towners on the prowl for a superbear. In practice, however, they mostly spend their time shooting the shit in town. They brought in money, so no one complained. Despite the very concerning amount of guns that were out and about, they were mostly peaceful. They didn’t even really get that mad when some weird cat lady shoved them hard as she ran.

She ran like hell. 

The Snack Falcon was ahead.

She ran in. She thought she might have smashed through the sliding doors, but she didn't care.

She jumped the counter. 

She saw Gregg.

Get out of the way, Gregg. She shoved him aside, getting to the slushy machine.

She tore off the top of the slushy machine, and shoved her face into the ice cold liquid. She hoped the ice cold slush would freeze her down, snap her out of it. If she drowns, that still takes care of the problem.

The ice chill made her shiver until she no longer had the strength to hold herself up. She fell behind the counter of the snack falcon. She breathed with difficulty, the oxygen burning her lungs. 

She did it! 

She felt smaller, her claws were smaller, her stolen, now ruined hunting clothes were baggy once more. She almost felt like crying, even though she’d managed to stop herself from turning, the pain from even her weak change still hurt like hell. She compromised by laughing giddily, glad that the evil passed.

Then she realized her right arm had just been handcuffed. 

She was handcuffed by Gregg, who had the other handcuff on his arm.

Of all the questions Mae could have asked, she asked: "why do you have handcuffs?"

"Dude, where the hell were you!?"

"uh.."

"Home." Mae flatly stated, a smile on her face.

................................................................................................................................................

5 or so in the afternoon, Mae was still with Gregg, just now at his and Angus's apartment, waiting on the couch for him and Bea to get out of work. Mae noticed that while Gregg had been his usual talkative self, he hadn't brought up anything about the night she last saw them.

"So. you saw you know what, right. The thing I turned into?"

".......yeah."

"I hurt anyone?"

Gregg knew about the 5 dead that night. He also knew about the other deaths. "No, Angus broke a rib, though."

Gregg saw Mae's mood sink immediately from just that, he knew she wouldn't react well to knowing she killed 5 people that night. Let alone the others.

"You know.. midnight, I have to get out of here, fast."

"Still plenty of time left in the day."

"for now."

......................................................................................................................

Angus walked up the apartment stairs, the rib was feeling better, but still hurt when he took any deep breaths. Bea was there at the front door with a saw.

"Hi Bea- what's with the saw?"

"Gregg told me to bring it"

"...Oh damn it, he forgot the key"

"To the door?"

"No...well yes, probably, but that's not the key I was talking about"

Indeed, he opened the door, only to see Gregg on the floor at the restroom door. His arm was shoved as much as it could go under the door.

"Ahoy' Cap'n!"

"What are you-"

"Oh, I handcuffed myself to Mae, but she had to use the restroom"

From behind the door, Mae hollered "For what it's worth, this isn't ideal for me either!"

Indeed, it wasn't.

Mae was an inch away from the soap, she hadn't needed to use the restroom, she just needed to get soap to get the cuffs off. Then she could sneak out the window. She had resorted to holding herself up on the toilet seat to try and reach with her feet.

Her plan was interrupted when she fell backwards, the cuffs detaching from Gregg. The door opened to reveal Bea. Mae looked up sheepishly.

"I uh, was stretching before i-"

"You were gonna use the soap to get the handcuffs off?"

"Basically."

"Eh, that was kind of clever."

On the couch, Mae sat on the floor, rubbing where the cuffs were. Bea stood, Angus and Gregg sat on the couch, with Gregg's head on his lap.

"So, where do we start?" Bea started

"Well, for one, I'm a werewolf."

"Yep." said Angus, long having had peace with the idea.

Gregg asked "does it hurt?"

"Well, not  _ now _ , no. when I turn....it's one of the worst pains I've felt, it's like dying, but someone's beating you to death from the inside out. By the way, what's the plan for tonight?"

Bea responded. She, Gregg, and Angus had been discussing the idea in the intervening week. "At 10, we'll drive you as far away from possum springs as possible, then come to pick you up in the morning."

"We don't really know how effective this will be, we've obviously never dealt with a werewolf before, and all the ones from movies and stuff have wildly different rules. We'll have to figure out things as we go along." mused Angus.

"It'll be annoying to spend the gas money, but this might be the best way for you to keep on being able to live your life."

"Up until me and Angus move, we'll totally be willing to help drive you to the woods!"

Mae thought about it. Before today, it could have been viable. She almost wanted not to tell them, live her life like that.

"Bad news. Today I nearly turned in broad daylight."

"What!?!" was the rare simultaneous group reaction.

"In the day?"

"What caused it!?"

"Did you look at, like, a picture of the moon or something?"

Mae had to take a deep breath. "...Remember the cult?"

Angus had to take off his glasses to rub his face in his palms, Mae heard him mutter "Oh, son of a" under his breath.

"The brother of one of their members came back. He knows. He made buddy buddy with my parents while I was gone, and and and..."

"He threatened to get them and you guys. That's why I almost turned."

"I think my life as I know it is...over. If I stay here, I could kill you all, or he might. I got to get away."

Mae had her head in her arms. 

She knew things would end. 

She'd lose her parents, Bea, Angus, Gregg, everyone and everything. 

But to have it all ripped away in one fell swoop felt exceptionally cruel.

Mae suddenly felt a hand on her shoulder. it was Bea.

"You're my best friend. you're Gregg's best friend, you're Angus's best friend, you're  _ our best  _ friend! We saved you from a conservative murder cult, we can find a way to help you with this. We won't give up on you."

Gregg cheered "woo!"

"We're with you all the way on this." said Angus. "Even if it kills us."

"Dude, I've followed you and you followed me to some stupid stuff, why stop now?" said Gregg.

Their attempts to support Mae eventually devolved into hugging. Despite that, Mae couldn't help but feel a little better about the future.

That said, everyone got a nasty look on their face when they got a closeup sniff on wild animals, dead flesh, and corn syrup.

"Oh, yeah" Mae acknowledged, Gregg even gagging a bit. "Can I use your shower? And borrow some clothes?"

............................................................................................................................................

Lori felt like doing something stupid. Her interest in werewolves led her to order something online a week ago. It arrived this morning, and her parents freaked out seeing what it was. That would have been fine on it's own, the house was usually a screaming match anyway, but her mother went out of her way to go to her room to smash up her stuff. That pissed her off something wild.

She sat in the car's front seat. She wanted to do something stupid to make them mad. Thing is, she already did: the car she was sitting in was her mom's. She stole the keys and drove off. Evidently, her mom hadn't noticed, so now she was just sitting there like an idiot.

The sun was going down. Even the various hunters out and about outside were going home for the most part. What little light remained illuminated a passing car she saw: a crappy truck. Who was in the back of the truck was what piqued Lori's interest. it was Mae! She was seemingly being driven out of possum springs.

As Lori leaned down clumsily, placing the keys in the ignition in the dark, she failed to notice two cars passing by. The first was a police car, the second was a crappy minivan.

Joe Garrity drove past Lori's car in the crappy minivan. He almost couldn't believe what he had just successfully done, good thing the people in this town were the small minded townies they were, he thought. No one had even questioned what was in his back seat, and he was now tailing a cop who didn't notice him at all. He decided to slow down, give more space, even though he was certain he could be bumper to bumper and still never be noticed. He had his "cargo" in the backseat and in the passenger seat, a shotgun. It was the only gun he brought, and if all worked well, it'd be the only one he'd need.

He turned back. "Are you two back there good?"

"It'll be a bit of a drive, any choice in music?"

"..."

"I guess you can't respond, yeah."

"Got some rolling stones," he said, holding up a best of compilation from 2002. "which would you two prefer,  _ Street Fighting Man _ or  _ Gimme Shelter _ ? _ " _

_ "..." _

"Oh, right. I love  _ Street Fighting Man _ , but you two don't have the same personal connection, I imagine."

"..."

" _ Gimme Shelter _ it is."

With a click of a button (bless this new technology. well, "new", he couldn't figure out a phone), the music of his youth encompassed him.

> _ Ooh, a storm is threatening _
> 
> _ My very life today _
> 
> _ If I don't get some shelter _
> 
> _ Ooh yeah I'm gonna fade away _

..................................................................................................................................

It was ten at night. Angus was the one at the wheel. He drove as far as possible away from the town and the hunters that had recently infested the place.

"Can we go a little farther?" asked Mae, anxious. The moon was coming up, she'd turn soon.

"We're halfway there, just an hour or so more until we hit the real middle of nowhere."

"So, what'cha gonna do as a werewolf?" asked Gregg 

Mae had to think. She wasn't in a very joking mood. She even threatened to break the nose of anyone who pointed out that the shirt Mae got lent from Gregg and Angus was a crappy wolf shirt, with art you’d see airbrushed on the side of a van. If there was a god, he must have hated Mae.

"Eat an entire moose." Might as well try, she thought. After all, studies show that pretending to smile will make you happier than not smiling at all.

"I don't think that any still live here" stated Bea.

"I saw some articles that say that they're coming back a bit, I think. At least sightings." Angus informed.

"Oh" said a disappointed Gregg. 

"Mae if you find a moose you should grab it and use it to beat another moose to death" Gregg continued regardless.

"Gregg, how could you?" Mae screamed with faux shock "What if Peta heard you?"

"Oh" said a similarly faux disappointed Gregg. 

"Mae if you find a moose you should grab it and use it to beat Peta to death instead" Gregg smiled back.

"I add my support" added Bea, trying to hide her chuckling.

"Oh you kids and your wacky violence" Angus added with faux disappointment.

"That's how the world is!" Gregg shot back before sirens blared in the background.

A cop was pulling them over.

"Oh, shit" Angus muttered, pulling over.

"Oh no!" Gregg screamed "I hid ten tons of weed in here!"

Mae nearly reacted seriously before realizing, "How do you hide ten tons of weed in a car?"

"Carefully". Gregg said "I tore out the engine and replaced it with heroin!"

"You fool!" Mae retorted, "You hide meth in the engine, you put heroin in the windshield wipers!"

"See Bea there? that's not even Bea, that's just a pile of crack that looks like Bea!" Gregg joked

"It's a living." Bea added.

"I'm not a trash mammal, I'm a crack mammal! A creature of pure-" Mae nearly continued until she saw Aunt Mall Cop glaring at her through the window.

Mae tried to save. "I uh, was only joking."

................................................................................................................................................

After the obligatory Miranda rights, Mae found herself face to Angus's car dash, getting handcuffed. A shame she couldn't say this was the first time.

"Why!? Why now of all times?!" Mae angrily screamed.

"Let her go!" yelled Bea.

“She's a full grown adult, she can do what she legally wants!” Angus pointed out.

"acab acab acab acab-" Gregg screamed before a solid glare from Molly shot him down. (he still thought it though.) 

"Please tell me, what's the crime this time?" Mae indignantly asked.

"I spend days and nights looking for you, talking to everyone that could have even possibly known where you were, and you slink off out of town again without even saying anything to your mother and father! She's been so worried for you, she's been vomiting!" 

Molly yelled at Mae in a way she'd never heard before. Molly was furious, a fury born of worry.

"I did! I visited this morning!"

"Oh, bullshit! She would have called me the moment you arrived, you know that!"

"What!?" Mae realized. She was there. but her parents never called? "B-but."

"No buts! Just a stay overnight in the cell for you! Trust me, what your parents will do to you tomorrow will make that cell seem like the goddamned Bahamas!"

Molly practically tore the door open, intending on shoving Mae in. 

Then she noticed headlights. 

Fast headlights coming right for them getting blindingly bright. 

Mae was expecting to be thrown in when she suddenly got thrown backwards, into the snow. Before she could even get a sense of her surroundings, she heard metal and glass tear, shatter, and smash against the police car, the car screeching across the road.

Molly was on the ground. Someone crashed into her. The headlights were still strong, she saw her silhouette in the trees. She felt blood run down her head.

She began to rise when the asphalt next to her head exploded with a thunderclap that echoed through the woods. She tried to reach for her gun before feeling a hot, smoking shotgun barrel press against her head and burn her forehead.

"Don't move piglet."

It was Joe Garrity. She didn't get to know him personally, too busy. The impression she got was that he was a stand up guy, even her sister Candy said as much.

"Why-"

"Your sister's kid. don't worry, piggy. I still need you.  _ I'm _ not gonna kill you at least.." 

He saw Mae's friends get out of the car in the distance. They were either in shock or on their way to stop him. The orange fox one in particular seemed like he was gonna try and be a hero. Time to put a stop to that.

"Back off or the cop gets her brains on the pavement!"

That got them to a standstill.

"You two,” he pointed to the orange fox and brown bear. “Get your friend Mae up, standing."

Mae still didn't understand what was happening, just that something crashed and that she saw headlights and heard a big bang like a thunderclap. In this weather? No, it couldn't have been a-

Mae felt Gregg and Angus grab her by the arms. As she rose, still handcuffed, she saw what happened. Molly on the ground, bleeding as Garrity pointed a gun at her head.

Mae nearly turned then and there, but Molly was on the line. She had to push it down. Keep it in....

"You, gator girl."

Garrity threw the keys to his car to Bea. everyone flinched, but Bea still caught them. They were indeed, just keys.

"Open the backdoors of my car", he pointed to the car with one hand, gun still at Molly's head to the other. "I got cargo."

Bea did so, Garrity yelling "You, fox and bear. Don't move. Don't even make a sound." Gregg looked pissed. So was Angus, but to keep Molly safe, they did as told.

"Mae. I saw what you did earlier. I know you're holding back. I think we show your friends and family what you really are tonight."

Bea opened the side doors. Mae's parents were there. Bound and gagged. They were disheveled and bloody. Garrity had beaten them into submission to get them here.

"Oh god-"

"Take em out! Show your little friend here!"

Mae saw them. 

Despite her rebellious nature, she still saw them, idolized as her parents. Today she saw a man and a woman, scared out of their wits, bloody, cut up. Pathetically human.

Her father saw the distress in her face. "We're okay, kitten! We're okay! Please don't worry!" he cried from across the road, desperate to reassure Mae. He had to squint one eye since he didn't have his glasses, the other eye was a black eye.

"No matters what happens, you're still our little girl!" her mother cried out. Her nose had been broken, dried blood ran vertically down from both her nose and a horrific head gash Garrity had given her.

Mae stood there, motionless for a moment, as it sank in.

“Candy, Stan!?” Molly was faced away from Mae 's parents, but she recognized those voices. "Y-you sick bastard!" 

Mae saw Bea. Bea would have said something, but stayed quiet, it wasn't her life on the line.

"Dude..." Mae heard Gregg behind him. He was scared. Angus also kept silent, but Mae could tell from his breathing that he was pissed.

Mae knew at this point she was losing control.

**_RRRAGH_ ** Mae roared as she smashed her hands into her temple, the cuffs restraining her torn off like paper. 

She fell to her knees. Face into the pavement.

"Mae!" Gregg yelled, worried for his friend.

"Back off!" screamed Garrity. "Trust me, you're gonna want space in a moment or two!"

Mae was holding it in. Trying to. It was like stopping a stampede with a popsicle stick. 

It wasn't stopping. 

She smashed her face into the pavement. 

She heard her friend yell and Garrity yell back, but she wasn't really listening. It still wasn't stopping. 

She smashed the pavement with her head again. head trauma usually works, but it didn't this time. 

She did it again.

And again. 

And again.

Her friends and family got scared for her when she left blood on the pavement. 

They got really scared when she started  _ cracking _ the pavement.

Mae gathered what remained of her sanity and spoke to the best of her abilities to Garrity .

"I-I-I'll gggive you ONE llasst chance." 

"Me one last chance!?"

"Let them go anandanAndAND i-I won't give you the worst death imaginable." Mae barely managed to growl out.

"I'm not scared of dying. Especially not a painful one, it'll mean my life was worth something." Garrity retorted. “You're goin’ too slow for me. Like I promised piggy here, I'm not gonna kill your friends and family. But you are."

One more thunderclap rang through the forest.

Molly thought she was dead until she saw him pointing the gun at someone else.

Bea fell. Everyone's hearts skipped a beat.

He shot Bea in the foot.

In those split seconds, Mae thought she died.

She stopped keeping it back. 

She let it wash over her, almost reveling in it. 

She willingly turned on one condition.

He died first.


	8. Nothing to Change Into

Mae nearly doubled in size as she ran towards Garrity .

She was the fastest thing that had ever ran towards Garrity. Good thing for him, he already had the gun up.

He shot her in the face point blank with a shotgun.

To his surprise, he was knocked over. A claw digging into the flesh on his abdomen, getting bigger and heavier.

He still had his arms, so he once again shot Mae in the face, red mist spraying on his face.

The growling made him realize all he'd accomplished was pissing her off.

As the beast raised a fist. Garrity realized where he went wrong. 

"Silver. How stupid of me." 

He failed to notice the second set of headlights illuminating the beast, headlights that were coming in fast.

Yet another minivan had smashed at full speed into the creature, going off the road as it wound up smashing it into a tree.

Garrity got up. The gods had smiled upon him. He knew it would be best to retreat. The cop would likely live, so he'd need a kidnappee. He saw the parents on the ground. Too heavy, each.

he saw the gator girl on the ground, holding her foot in shock and pain. Bea, for her part, still didn’t realize what had happened. All she knew was that her foot hurt and she couldn’t stand on it anymore.

She'd do.

He got up, grabbed the gator girl. 

The orange, brown, and cop ones were running towards him. He was lucky he was closest to the driver's seat. He shoved himself in with Bea, essentially on her lap. 

He drove off. He heard the cop shoot at the car, but she wisely stopped. None of the shots even hit him anyway.

Molly tried to memorize the license plate, in the meantime, the other two of Mae's friends were trying to free Stan and Candy. She yelled at them "get them to the car!" as she ran over to the minivan that crashed into Mae. See who was behind the wheel.

A mouse girl leapt out of the seat, tripping over herself, her leg caught in the seatbelt. She was screaming "Oh god I hit the accelerator" over and over again.

Who the hell was this? 

Molly thought she'd seen her before, in town, but didn't know who she was.

Before she could even ask, or do anything, the car was starting to move. Not by its own power.

The car violently lurched on it's side, dragging the poor mouse girl with it, into the snow and trees. 

Mae got up, angry, no longer recognizing the world around her.

It had seemed that Angus and Gregg had the foresight to leap in the car and drive up to Molly, screaming behind her to jump in the car. She dove in, just as a claw swipe took off the right door. Cop cars are built to go from zero to a hundred fast, and the car did, disappearing into the cold forest.

The creature sniffed the air. It was still not alone.

Lori got the snow off her. She thought she ran over a bear, and killed it by accident. She finally got that stupid seatbelt off her leg, and was now on top of the sideways car, dangling her leg to try and climb down. She felt a pain in her side, she had fallen on top of the thing she ordered. Perfect.

To make things even more perfect, the thing she hit with the car was on its way to her. 

Definitely not a bear.

It was coming towards her, and it was  _ angry.  _ The only thing she could do was make at least some attempt to stop it. So she took out her purchase.

Weeks ago, she saw a listing for what she thought was a letter opener, one that was plated with pure sterling silver. 

"Awesome!" she thought. 

She didn't get any letters, but if she needed to fight off the supernatural or just wanted to show off, there it was! When it arrived, she realized it wasn't a letter opener.

She wielded the silver plated sword, even though the thing was taller than she was! 

She did her best to stand her ground. "Jesus", she thought, "where'd this bravery come fr-"

The beast jumped, landed on her, Lori smacked it in the face with the sword. 

All she thought was "oh shit, this is it."

The beast suddenly recoiled, screeching in incredible pain. Lori could swear she heard the skin itself fry like bacon from contact.

The beast, having effectively learned its lesson, walked away from the mouse with a bruised ego.

As the creature walked away, something about it seemed familiar to lori. She couldn't put her finger on it. What she did know is that she was freezing her butt off outside. No chance in driving home now, so she had to make herself comfortable for a below zero night in a car that was on its side. Fun.

..............................................................................................................................................

The cop car slowed to a stop, near the outside area of Possum Springs. The woods were dark, and it was the witching hour. Gregg would have already been kinda spooked by the cold night, even if he hadn't been almost killed a moment ago. It was cold, it was scary, Bea was gone. Only Angus's warmth kept him anchored to something that could be called safety.

"You okay?"

"Yeah!"

Those were words that on paper alone were generic. Coming from Angus, It was reassuring. The outside was cold and he was warm. Gregg was sitting on his lap, due to lack of space. With what little space he had, he turned to embrace him. Through everything and all the shitty things that raised Angus's blood pressure, love was still there.

Despite everything, he could hold on to that moment.

"Ahem."

Gregg turned to look at aunt mall cop (he didn't know her real name), staring at them in confusion.

It took a moment until he realized why she stared the way she did.

"Uh-"

"Oh! Sorry! Sorry!" Molly awkwardly reassured. "Uh, it's a free country, sorry to intrude."

Molly turned to look at Candy and Stan in the back seat. She had an odd expression of "did you know?" Stan was busy looking out the window, Candy nodded in a neither approving or disapproving way.

"So, what now?" asked molly. "I'm just as lost as you guys. I can get Garrity arrested, but there are no legal presidences for werewolves."

Angus tried to help however he could. "She isn't in control of herself like that. Mae could potentially get out on insanity, or something like that."

"That still leaves what we are going to do with a werewolf."

"We have to do something, dammit! Despite everything she's still my daughter!" her father suddenly called from the back.

"Well, what can we do!?" Molly responded. "She's my nephew, I love her too, but I just don't know!"

Silence hung in the car for a moment. It was late at night anyway. They'd figure out something soon enough.

............................................................................................................................................

The light of early morning illuminated the car on the side of the highway.

The shotgun had been loaded with birdshot, not buckshot. Thus, Bea got to keep her foot for the most part. Taking off congealed bloody sock revealed a mostly intact foot, aside from where it was shot, where it looked like someone poked holes into her flesh and scales. It hurt like hell just to look at. You can only imagine the pain when alcohol was poured over it. 

"AAAK!" Bea yelled. she had to punch the dash of the car to try and bare the pain.

"Boo hoo" mocked Joe Garrity. He had intended to celebrate with vodka in case he survived, but was now pouring it all over this girl's wounds.

"What the hell is your problem!"

"You'd be pissed too if she killed one of your loved ones. or got them killed" he said, slightly strained. Adrenaline and a few amphetamines had gotten him through the encounter, but now both were wearing off. He had broken ribs, open wounds, and probably a broken or fractured leg that got run over. He was doing a damn good job at keeping it hidden, though.

"Your brother was in a cult that threw homeless people in a hole to try and keep themselves alive. He was an asshole who got what he deserved."

Garrity took pause. Bea was scared for a moment. This guy was probably a psychopath. he sure looked all fatherly and nice, but lots of horrible people were able to fake that.

"That's the thing about love. It makes you do crazy things."

"That doesn't make things right!"

"No, it makes things fair. All's fair in love and war, all that shit. That's the funny thing, last election season I would have agreed that he got what he deserved. He was my brother, he was a piece of shit, but I loved him. Love can make you overlook things...you know, my brother knew your mom."

Bea was fairly cold, stoic even. The mention of her mom was one of the few things to raise her voice from it's low near monotone to something human.

"Don't you bring up my mom!"

"She was a nice woman, trust me! My brother had nothing but good to say about her....you love her, right?"

"Yes." Bea replied. It was true, but she said it with as much contempt towards him as possible.

"She was the town bike. I'd like to say she stopped when she got married, but if anything she got worse. It's a miracle she died of cancer before she died of aids or something like"

Bea tried to strangle him. He was bigger and stronger, so it didn't do much, but she clawed the hell out of his arm. Bea knew he was probably lying, but still, @#$@ him!

"Yousonofa-you-bitch!"

"See, exactly! That's what it is. If I killed her myself, there'd be no place on earth for me to hide."

"Oh, eat my entire ass!"

"No thanks. I have to say though. It's odd you also had the same assumption of my brother that Mae did."

Bea stared at him.

"Once again. I can't prove anything. I've had to fight for myself for years, so I've learned to trust my gut. You, the orange one and the brown one....."

"Like I said, can't prove nothing." Garrity said.

The car jumped with motion on to the road. The jump scared the hell out of Bea.

"Best you stick with me. We're going to my brother's old house. Then we're gonna find a way to end this."

.............................................................................................................................................

Lori woke up. She was cold, but not that cold. Which was strange since it was below zero. She looked above where the car door was above her, and saw a large mass over the car. She couldn't tell what time it was, it still seemed dark outside. Perhaps it would be morning soon?

The back door of the car could be opened from the inside (at least the window could), Lori got out only to be hit by the chill of below zero cold.

The natural first reaction is to scramble back into the warmth. Lori was indeed on her way until she heard a low growl that she could feel in her stomach, even in the silver sword she had.

She stayed still out of fear, but from turning her head, she could see a  _ massive _ black mass, eyes glowing in the night.

Three thoughts rang in her mind.

"That one's different from the other one."

"Oh shit! there's another one!"

"I don't think I can pull the sword in time."

The sliver of daylight from the horizon came in as the big mass on top of Lori's car lept perfectly in front of Lori.

She crawled into the car in seconds, but took a look out the window to see what was going on.

Two hulking beasts in black and midnight blue were duking it out. It reminded Lori of those old stop motion Ray Harryhausen movies. Or _ King Kong _ , where the massive Gorilla fought an equally massive T-rex in a fight to the death, while Fay Wray looked on helplessly in the foreground. 

The one that even in the crack of dawn seemed to be darker than dark, seems to be mostly a wild animal. A hulking animal that looked like it could crush a grizzly bear's skull, but animal nonetheless. The midnight blue one was smaller, seemingly younger. Despite that, there was something...human in the way it fought. It punched and clawed with something resembling strategy, it even got the idea to clamp it's opponent's jaws shut, then give it a good whack on the top of the head before it could back away. Good strategy, but it could only really do so much against the larger creature.

The dawn was coming in, the big one simply threw the blue one, then ran off into the woods with a frightening speed. It had enough. The midnight blue one stood on its hind legs, resting as the light of dawn was hitting it. Lori was finally able to see it.

It was densely muscular. not even in an aesthetic bodybuilder sort of way, but in a primal, grotesque barbaric sort of way. The arms and legs on it were comparable to a tree trunk. normal arms usually taper off and get thinner at the wrist. In comparison, this creature's wrists and hands were as thick as it's biceps. The only thing that matched it's limbs is it's massive body. latissimus dorsI (back muscles) flared out from under its arms like a cobra hood, massive trapezius (neck muscles) making it's thick panther neck look even thicker. It gave the impression of a massive brick with legs, which sounds comical until you're standing in front of it. All draped in a shaggy coat of midnight blue fur that shone blue in the sun but stayed black in the shadows. It had claws and fangs that were the size of normal kitchen knives. It had to be Eight or Nine feet tall. 

Lori was terrified by it. The only thing scarier is the fact that the black mass one was even  _ bigger, _ and was out there somewhere.

To Lori's confusion, it had a fleck of red dyed hair on the top of it's head. One of it's ears also had some of it taken off. It's eyes reminded Lori of Mae.

"That couldn't be." Mae was a short (still taller than Lori, though) chubby girl.

The forest stood still for only a moment before the beast suddenly receded in pain, the sun now officially up. Receded is the operative word, Lori was amazed to see it shrink before her own eyes. It was like a balloon that had its air let out. With the creature losing it's intimidation factor with every passing second, Lori gained the bravery to see it up close.

She noticed it was getting pretty small.

In fact, by now it was at Mae's height.

It stopped.

Lori got up close to see Mae , naked in the snow with a big scar, like a massive bite wound over her chest.

A dazed Mae looked at Lori before she regained her senses. Lori noticed a scar over her face, the same where she struck the creature.

"...Morning?"

"Oh my god." Lori flatly stated, too shocked to even scream "Y-y-you're a-"

"Werewolf. yeah." Mae bitterly responded.

Lori stammered for a bit, this earth shattering revelation that one of her favorite horror creatures existed and was her friends understandably shaking her. She eventually managed to earnestly ask:

"C-can you make me one too?"

Mae was still flat on the ground, but was still floored by that question.

"Why!?"

"I mean, you should have seen yourself! you were huge! beastly! a monster!"

"None of those are compliments!'

"To you! You have confidence, friends! I'm small, a weakling, an ugly little mouse girl. I want to be a monster!"

"Try saying that when you've nearly killed your friends! I don't even know how many people I've gotten killed! I think I killed three hobos..."

"I think eleven are..." Lori had to stop herself immediately. She said too much.

"Eleven what!? I've killed eleven people!?"

"No, no-I-"

"Don't lie!" Mae shot up to grab Lori by the shoulders, even though she was in no condition to do so.

Lori wanted to lie, but Mae was gonna find out sooner or later, and not react well. 

Better out here in the woods than home. 

"Eleven people died. A big monster came and killed them. I think the worst was five people in one night."

The woods were silent, and cold.


	9. Fools and Scoundrels

"The Book of Job is a neat little oasis in between all the stuff about God and Zion and Israel and all that stuff in the old testament. It's the only book from the old testament to ask the question we've all wondered, why god permits bad things to happen to innocent people. It's about this guy named Job, who god decides to test by taking everything away from him, his livelihood, his home, even his kids. If you've ever read anything by Dostoyevsky, the feel of that book reminds me of his writings. or should it be the other way around, the works of Dostoyevsky remind me of the book of job? Who knows?"

"Dostoyevsky's the president of russia, right?". Lori said half jokingly, half because she legitimately didn't know.

"Hahah!" the man laughed, Lori still didn't know his name. "No, that's Putin."

Lori laughed nervously. She and Mae were picked up by a hunter who found them walking home on the side of the road. The guy turned out to be an english teacher, he had more books than guns in his car. Lori noticed the bible on his car dash with a bookmark on it. Lori didn't believe in god, but she knew Mae was real low, so she asked him about it to hopefully impart some generic Jesus saves hope stuff. Of course, he had to be reading about something horribly depressing.

"I have a question." Mae called from the back, "Does it say anything about god making us do things we didn't want to do, or had no control over? Something like that?"

"Hell if I know, I'm not religious." the man replied. "Historically and scientifically, the bible is debatable at best. from a literary standpoint, it's still fantastic. For better or for worse, it shaped the world, morality, such and such as we know it. It's a fascinating read."

Mae laid down on the backseat. The guy gave her some of his extra clothes and even a blanket over her to warm her up. 

Eleven people were still dead because of her, though. 

_Eleven people_. 

She maybe could have accepted it if she killed them personally and they were jerks, but those were innocent people.

"Dostoyevsky's writings are fascinating, by the way. you know a writer is fantastic when he captures something about the human spirit that's still relevant today as it was in 1840's russia. His books are really hard reads, they're depressing with very little levity. If you can get through that, you'll have a real gem in your hands."

"Neat!" Lori said. she didn't really have that much interest in literature, but she had gotten herself into this conversation, and didn't know how to get out. She decided to humor him.

"If I wanted to get into him, which book of his should I get into?"

" _Notes From Underground_ , without a doubt. It's a short read, within 200 pages. It's the writings of a guy who's misanthropic and angry at the world. The guy is basically your modern internet troll, but in 1840's Russia. That may not seem like the best novel in the world on the surface, but it's an incredible read because even though the underground man's a piece of shit, he's a very human piece of shit. I think we all at some point in time, begin to feel like him at one point of our lives: directionless, angry, but no will or power to take it out on someone. it's a warning, more than anything. If you stay like that, it'll make you something ugly. _Crime and Punishment_ is another great one. A man sets out to commit a murder, and he does it. Once he does it though, he has to face the......."

Mae laid there on the car seat, the words blurring in her head. She was sick to her stomach.

........................................................................................................................................

The pure sterling silver cross shone brilliantly in the almost closed shutters of the room, the tiny slivers of sunlight bouncing off making the room brighter.

Garrity was observing the cross as the ceramic furnace in the room got up to a high enough temperature. He noticed that where the spot where the nail would go was on the bottom. It would hang upside down if it was put on a wall. He also noticed instead of Christ on the cross, there was a sculpture of a goat. It belonged to his brother, hidden in a secret compartment in the closet.

He tossed the cross into the heated ceramic cup. It would be put to a better purpose in a moment anyway. The crocodile girl next to him started with resentment. She had been tied to a chair. 

Suddenly a lone police siren filled the air. Both stayed still, completely silent as they heard the cop exit his car to knock on the door.

"Garrity? Joseph R. Garrity?" the cop yelled from outside. He sounded young.

"In here! Come in! I can't come to the door! Keys are under the doormat!" 

People say never let a cop in your home. Garrity let him in because he needed him away from the radio in the car. He needed him outside his turf.

After some deliberation, the cop came in. He was a young handsome water deer, fresh out of the academy. He was nervous, but still pressed on ahead. His hand was to his gun holster, but the gun itself was not out.

"Joseph R. Garrity?"

"Speaking."

"You're under arrest." the cop spoke, gaining some authority. "Hands up. You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a-"

Bea noticed the knife in Garrity's hand that he hid from the cop.

"LOOK OU-"

Garrity was upon him in moments. The cop was younger, but Garrity had an old man strength to him. As soon as Garrity was on top of him, it was over. At the same time, it wasn't over nearly as fast as it should have been.

The cop was screaming. He wasn't even a cop at this point, just some young man being violently murdered by an old bastard. What scared Bea, what would follow her to the grave, was the cop's screaming. He did not want to die. He screamed in pain, Garrity kept stabbing him in the neck. blood was getting everywhere. The cop kept screaming, occasionally making an awful gurgling sound from the blood entering his lungs. It had been three minutes, the cop was still not dead. still screaming. Garrity eventually had to get a brick from the foundation of the furnace he jury rigged and beat him to death with a heated brick. The screaming abruptly stopped two minutes later, but Garrity continued to smash his head in.

"Stupid piece of shit pig." Garrity muttered as he stood, covered in blood. Garrity then searched the man's pockets, adding insult to injury. Poor bastard would now have to have a closed casket funeral, at the least he could leave his belongings alone.

"Sonovabitch!" Garrity exclaimed. The cop's wallet had pictures of some guy. Pictures of the cop with him, kissing him, even one of the guy naked. He was gay!

"Would you believe piggy here was gay? Holy shit!" Garrity exclaimed to Bea. "Traitor to his own kind, this @$%# pig!"

Bea vomited. It wasn't enough for Garrity to murder this young man, steal his future from him so he could stay free for, what a day more? Now he was being homophobic to the man's corpse.

"You." Bea managed to eek out before dry heaving. "You killed a man who didn't do anything to you, to anyone!"

"He was a cop. None of them are innocent, they all enforce the system that crushes us all to death! Steals our hopes and dreams from us!"

Bea was terrified, she was still dry heaving. It was horrible to see someone's life ripped away from them. Despite veverything, she still said, "You can say whatever the @#%# you want, make whatever excuses, but all I'll see is the blood on your hands."

Garrity stood silent. blood soaking him to his underwear. He took off his shirt, heading upstairs to change. Bea noticed a small symbol tattooed on his upper back. it looked like a rainbow, no colors, only lines, with a thin thunderbolt going across it. Garrity undid his ponytail and his long silver hair hid the symbol from sight.

He was up there for a while, three hours or so. 

Even when he was younger and faster, bomb making was a complicated process. 

He made plenty of them when he was younger, in Michigan, so at least he had the practice. He also had more material then he would have ever hoped for as a young man. His brother had barrelful's of tannerite in a shed far from the house. It was for target practice, but that much in once place would cause an explosion that'd send pieces of brick probably all the way to possum springs. He couldn't take all of it, so he packed as much as he could into a large hunting backpack. He then assembled a detonator, and left for downstairs with a very heavy backpack.

When he came back down, the silver had melted. He took three guns, a rifle, a shotgun, and a 44. revolver. He got the ammunition with pincers, and the jury rigged his own silver jackets for the bullets with the molten silver. The cop's blood took up most of the floor by this point. Only 4 pints in a human body, but there seemed to be so much of it. With his new silver bullets created, he downed pain killers, then kicked the ceramic cup over onto the wooden floor. The floor caught fire immediately. With an old house like this, the house would go up in flames quickly.

"You, you're coming with me." he directed at Bea.

They were in the car, the house already in a blaze, the abandoned cop car outside. The car pulled out into the highway, dark smoke flowing over the forest's trees.

Garrity was on some level, sad to see the house go. It had been there since before his grandparents. He had so many happy memories.

That’s why he knew he had to burn it down. 

Everything was coming to a close. He needed to commit a hundred percent to what follows, leave nothing to turn back to. If there was even the temptation, he'd hesitate and fail, and spend the remainder of his life in jail.

He'd been told so many lies growing up. Even when he thought he knew the truth, the way to go, he never got what was promised. The lies from his parents about being whatever you could be never came true. The system crushed him. The real bitter pill was his revolutionary days. He and his comrades would change the world for the better. Break the shackles of the establishment, and burn it all down for a better tomorrow. It never came to be, none of it did. All of them either stayed in jail, became druggies, or bent the knee to the man, and returned to comfy trust fund lives. He sacrificed everything for a better tomorrow, but the world kept going. He stood now a failed revolutionary, a failed son, and a failed brother.

He would not be a failed assassin.

"I bet the punk you kids listen to nowadays is just sissy soundcloud rapper shit, right?"

Bea didn't bother dignifying that with a response. trying to claim superiority over someone by listening to old music was pathetic, really.

He turned on the music. It was Sid Vicious's cover of _My Way_. Bea mused that he probably thought he was hot shit because he listened to old punk music.

"Sid Vicious. That was a guy who never compromised. he went down the way a real punk would."

"Overdosing on heroin?" Bea shot back.

"Yes, but on his terms. Rest of the punks and revolutionaries and hippies went on to kneel and kiss the ring. Sid stayed defiant to the grave."

"Sure he did."

Bea chose to stay silent again, not bother with this lunatic. The music played on as they made their way to Possum Springs.

> _There were times, I'm sure you knew_
> 
> _When there was fuck fuck fuck-all else to do_
> 
> _But through it all, when there was doubt_
> 
> _I shot it up or kicked it out_
> 
> _I faced the wall and the world_
> 
> _And did it my way_

....................................................................................................................................

Mae's house is where the hunter dropped them off. Lori got out knowing more about Fyodor Dostoevsky than she ever really cared to know about. Most of it went over Mae. Eleven people is what hung in her mind. It was mid-day. something was approaching. She could feel it in her scars from the bite. 

Her dad was at what used to be the front door. He was trying to place a new door to replace the one she broke while Mae's mom talked to him

"You think the bank will get angry about the damage?"

"We'll just glue everything into position and hope for the.."

They saw Mae, at the footstep.

Even when embraced by her parents, both dropping everything just to be with her. She felt her sins weigh her down like a stone.

She was home. She bathed. She got in her clothes.

She got a good look in the mirror, the first time in ages.

she had been wearing stolen or borrowed clothes the entire time, so it was odd to see herself in her shirt with the circle with a dash through it with a red sweater underneath and crappy knockoff boots, again.

That was Mae in the mirror. But what was she now? There was no going back. She had a bodycount higher than some serial killers. Something was coming. She felt it even though it wasn't related to anything she was feeling at the moment. It was an odd clash of emotions.

She walked downstairs, Lori and her father were having an odd conversation. her mom was in the kitchen cooking up hot chocolate.

"-And the sinkhole opened up near the library. Ate some poor guy's car"

"Wow. What do you think caused it? Molemen perhaps?"

"Probably not molemen, no. All these new people might be the reason. these hunters are still trying to find the killer-Hi kitten!" her dad tried to divert. "How are you doing?"

"What happened last night?"

"You went for Garrity first. Then...Lori, right?"

"Yeah."

"Lori hit you with her car. Gave us time to escape. We spent most of the early morning recounting at the police station before we went home a while ago."

“How’s Molly?” Mae asked. She almost never called Aunt Mall Cop by her name, but this was not a situation to fuck around in. 

Her mother replied from the kitchen “Molly’s in observation in the hospital. You didn’t hurt her, Garrity did.”

"what happens now?" asked Mae .

Her father paused for a bit.

"We all lied. Said that Garrity tried to rob us until the superbear attacked us, you ran off with lori. You're safe." He said with some hesitation.

Mae realized that she could walk free.

"No. No. No'' she started repeating. she began to hyperventilate.

"Honey, calm down." Seeing his daughter fall apart, he came in to comfort.

"Mae, it's okay, you're free." her mother came in, leaving the chocolate to overheat.

“It's okay, I'll lie too." Lori spoke, also trying to calm Mae. "I'll say we went into the woods and crashed-"

"I don't deserve to go scot free! I killed eleven people! I deserve a cell, a padded room, burnt at the stake, something!" Mae exploded. With what she did, she didn’t deserve to get away with everything. She deserves _something_.

Her father grabbed her shoulders. It was rare whenever he showed any sort of fatherly authority over Mae, he was smart enough to know Mae would rebel. This time, he had to drill it into her head.

"You are my daughter. I want a future for you. I'm sorry for the people who died, but you're my daughter first."

"What about the dead people, what about their families?!"

"I wouldn't know what to say to them. Besides, you weren't in control of yourself!"

"I...need to tell you the truth about something."

Mae told them everything about the cult, Casey, Garrity, everything. Lori had heard it before, but Lori wrote it off as some elaborate attempt at messing with her. The whole werewolf thing made her realize it may not be so ridiculous. 

Stan and Candy refused to believe it, but it explained so much. After that week a small number of people just up and disappeared. The Clik Clak was still looking for a new lead chef. Frank Garrity had been missing since that day. He was old, but he didn’t know anyone that hated him. That’s why over half the town showed up to the auction.

Hearing that Bea and the rest were involved made both realize something.

"Bea." her mother said suddenly.

"What? what about-where is she?" Mae asked frantically, knowing that was a bad sign.

"Garrity kidnapped her. Cops are looking for her."

They knew Mae. Both knew that Mae would probably go out and try and find Bea herself. Of course, the other time she did something like this, the cult wasn't looking to kill her. Garrity was going to kill her.

"I-ve got to"

"Mae!" her dad attempted to reason, "Even if you go, you might turn or something. You don't want to go try and save Bea only to kill her."

Lori attempted to come to Mae 's defense, saying "Perhaps she can-"

Mae's mother walked to face Lori, asking "Does your mother know where you are?"

“...No.”

“Then get out before I call the cops!” Candy was only halfway through the sentence before Lori rushed out the door, mouthing sorry to Mae as she ran out.

Mae wanted to go. She had no answer to that though. It figures that at night, she had power in spades that she couldn't control but was still as powerless as always in day.

"I'm going to take a nap." the feelings of sickness overwhelmed her.

She laid down on the mattress. She was supposed to be napping, but she stayed staring at the ceiling.

It was unfair.

It was unfair that fateful day when everything got ripped from her and she was left alone in a world of lifeless shapes.

It was unfair she came back to a town, and friends that had changed when she never got the chance to move on, to get one last chance to say goodbye to Casey.

It was unfair when just when she thought her life had some kind of direction, she became a monster. An unstoppable beast that left the human part of her animal self stranded. 

Eleven people, their names she didn't even know, were dead because of her. Bea might die because of her.

She got to her feet when the aches in her scars went from mild discomfort to searing pain. life army ant bites.

Fear shot to the forefront of her mind. 

The thing that bit her, the thing that made her something horrible, the thing that ruined her life, was coming back. She could feel it from her scars.

She had to go.

If she was going to die, fair enough. anything so that no one else dies because of her. She was cursed. something evil was in her. This was her only chance at redemption.

It then occurred to her that her parents probably wouldn't believe that she felt the fact that the monster that made her a werewolf was coming to town and that she knew because her scars hurt.

She'd have to use her creativit-

When she heard someone at the door, she ran down as fast as possible.

"Afternoon Mr. Boro-

"Mae!" Gregg screamed, overjoyed to see his friend safe, running to her for a hug. She saw Gregg had a backpack and that Angus was there, with something in a long, thin box.

"You okay? you safe?"

"I-I am, you!?"

"I'm good! Groggy, neither me or Angus got much sleep, but nothing bleeding!"

Angus walked up from behind. "Your aunt had to go to the hospital, but no bad injuries. Bea...."

"I know about Bea." Mae said. "Why'd you guys come?"

"Like I said, we're with you to the bitter end" Gregg cheerfully reaffirmed.

"Speaking of bitter ends, Mr. Borowski. Neither of us are particular fans of guns on good days, but with this extraordinary occasion...we got it, but we both agree it's safest in your hands."

With all the hunters around, getting a rifle had become rather frighteningly easy. These people came with an army's worth of rifles and guns, but lacked the common sense to bring much else. It led to a bizarre revival of the barter system, but with rifles. one hunter who wanted a genuine pickelhaube, even a defaced one gave his old bolt action, he had better ones anyway.

"I swear, that Garrity @#%# shows his face, i'll-i'll-i'll do something bad!"

"That's _also_ why I want you to have it." Angus emphasized.

Mae's dad, finally being able to get a word in edgewise, mused "That's okay boys, but we really don't need-"

"I know, I know. Trust me sir, had the situation not been what it was, I would have been insulted by the mere suggestion. In a situation like this, we need all the protection we can get."

"And what about night? When I turn?" asked a concerned Mae.

"We'll have to try driving out again. That's why I got the rifle. As much security as possible."

"We want you safe."

"Guys, this is all nice but....." Mae said before searing pain made her tense up, losing her footing and falling backwards.

"Oh crap!"

Angus got real close to Mae. hugging her in an attempt to stop what her thought was a transformation "Don't worry, calm down. You’re safe-"

Her dad ran to get her mom "Candy, get the-"

"It's coming back." Mae said fearfully. Angus got up as he realized she wasn't changing. Something else was happening.

"Who is?!"

"The one that started this entire $^%$ mess. The monster that bit me in the woods" Mae said hoarsely, tears in her eyes.

Gregg was the first to speak up "There's no way, I blew that thing up with dynamite!"

The confidence of his statement suddenly got the wind taken out of it when everyone heard guns go off across town. a lot of them.


	10. The Joy's of Hopelessness

The sun was starting to sink into the sky, so most hunters were retreating back into town. Theodore stood near his car, on the edge of town, looking at the orange fading into black above. His hunting hadn't had much luck, either for bears or pelts, but the isolation in the beautiful forests was worth it. He even spent most of the day helping two girls get back home instead of hunting. One was naked for some reason, so he had to donate spare clothes.

Everyone was packing up for home, it was getting dark. He spotted some rhesus monkey guy putting bags in his car.

He heard that some rhesus monkey guy tried spending a night in the woods to catch the bear, and got his clothes stolen for the effort. He had to walk a half a mile back into town naked to his underwear.

His luck clearly hadn't changed, as he was currently struggling to find the space in his crappy sedan from the late 90's for all the junk he had brought. He dropped the generator on his foot eight times or so.

He decided to walk up to the poor bastard, he clearly needed the help.

"You need the help?"

"No worries, I got this." the monkey man said before once again dropping the generator, the man choking out a curse. 

He recomposed himself, stating "I don't want to be a bother."

"It's no problem, honestly." Theodore said as he helped him with the generator. "By the name, what's your name?"

"Earl. Earl Hayes. you?"

"Theodore Dixon. I'm an english teacher from out of town."

"I mostly hunt for a living. not very good at much else."

Theodore was about to respond before he noticed on Earl's wrist a tattoo, Job 27:6.

"If you don't mind me asking, what's the significance of your tattoo?"

"Oh this?" Earl embarrassedly answered: "don't mind that, I don't want to impose."

"I'm reading the book of job. I don't believe in god, but at the very least, I can appreciate the literary value of it. I don't know that line off the top of my head, but what about it stood out to you?"

Earl thought for a bit, before responding. "I forgot the specific words, but it's just to remind me to not do anything that I'll regret later on. do my best to live to my principles, that shit."

"Interesting. honestly, that's good advice, no matter what your stance on-"

Earl saw Theodore enveloped by teeth and black fur, something massive leaping onto and tearing him apart.

He saw the monster sink its teeth into his body and yank it's head back. He witnessed Theodore's head fly off into the street.

Earl barely processed that he just watched this man die in front of him before the creature turned to him and killed him dead then and there.

Some other hunter had seen the horror suddenly unfold, and pulled out his gun to try and kill the monster. All his bullets did was enrage it, so he died also.

The monster ventured into town, killing anyone in its path. 

It was on its way to finish a kill.

............................................................................................................................

> _When I was a child_
> 
> _I caught a fleeting glimpse_
> 
> _Out of the corner of my eye_
> 
> _I turned to look but it was gone_
> 
> _I cannot put my finger on it-_

Garrity turned the volume knob down. He was in Possum Springs, and soon, on his way to the Borowski's house. He needed to focus.

He had learned his lesson. He nearly died from setting up that stupid situation. This time, he'd simply shoot Mae the moment he saw her. No grand final speech, no making her kill her own friends like a supervillain, just shoot her in the head.

He wondered what he'd do next, afterwards. If spending the rest of his life in a cell seemed bad, he had plenty of silver bullets.

His focus was broken when he heard gunshots. He grabbed Bea hard. He thought they'd found him, and this would be his last stand. He realized the bullets weren't aimed at him. they were a street over or so.

It was on the way anyway, so he drove to look. It might have been a set up, but he wanted to know.

Garrity had been through a bizarre last few days, but what he saw topped the rest of the weirdness of the last few days.

A massive, jet black _thing_ was going apeshit on the hunters that had recently infested the town. Even from quite a distance, he could see the beast murder someone shooting it point blank in the face while other hunters also attempted to put it down. The effect was somewhat like a Godzilla movie, the army throwing everything and the kitchen sink to no avail.

He remembered the monster that Mae turned into.

It wasn't that much of a leap of logic to realize the monster down the street was the one that made her what she was now.

It was even bigger than she was, and was currently slaughtering the unlucky bastards trying to stop it.

Having gotten his look, Garrity drove away.

Bea, neck free from Garrity's grip, took a breath. She then said, "You know your brother?"

"Yes."

"For all the wrong he did, at least I can say he did it to try and save the town. It doesn't excuse what he did, but he had a reason."

"Your point?"

"Your brother would have never turned his back while a monster attacked the town he loved."

"Ain't my town."

"It was your brother's town. You can either save what he died for or kill some girl that he didn't even want to kill. It was one of his piece of shit cult members that got them killed by destroying the elevator."

"So?"

"You're fighting for your brother, you say."

"I'm fighting for me, by this point." Garrity coldly stated. "Everyone's alone in the end. No point in disperssuadin' me by this point. What's gonna happen will happen."

"Then you really are like your brother."

Garrity recognized that she said that to get a rise from him. He slapped her anyway, probably breaking a tooth in the process. Mouthy girl.

............................................................................................................................

Why?

Why was all this happening to her?

What horrible sin had she done to deserve this?

She didn't even kill those eleven people, at least not consciously.

Random guy had run up to the door. Mae's father leaned outside to see what the hell all that gunfire was, the bear they were hunting entered town. He was running around telling people to stay inside. It was heading this way.

What happened next happened too fast for anyone to comprehend.

Car drove in fast, it nearly hit the guy.

Everyone was rushing in, Mae still didn't know who was driving.

They were dragging Mae in, by the arm. 

Driver got out of the car.

It was Garrity, using Bea as a hostage.

Mae could see the barrel of the gun pointed directly at her.

She heard a large bang, and then she fell.

By this point, the rest of the world fell off. She was alone.

She felt like she was floating in space.

Why?

She'd been here before. The cult. Everything was changing, but neither her or the cult could accept it.

Her friends rescued her, but before she left that cave, she passed out.

She accepted it then.

She'd die, and it would hurt.

At least that meant it all meant something.

But she was here now.

She learned her lesson, let things go.

But she couldn't.

Floating in the oblivion, she felt something vile.

It wasn't the black goat, or whatever that was. That was something she couldn't understand.

This she knew very well.

She didn't accept it. she just pushed it down, where it was killing her.

It was an odd experience to be floating in raw, pure anger. It was like a sewer, concentrated to the point of lethality.

What could she even do?

She accepted it before, she couldn't just accept it again and everything would turn out good.

She'd been here before. She'd done this! What more could she do!?

She floated through the miasma of anger. It occurred to her that's what life was, difficulty until you think you find a way to cope, then that gets taken from you, at which point you start over.

It sucked. Everything sucked. It would forever.

But that was just life.

A massive slap brought her from wherever the hell she was back to the real world. Gregg slapped her.

She was still alive.

It turned out that the bullets Garrity made were not particularly well made. The silver casings he quickly made jammed the gun.

Stan saw the man pointing the gun at his daughter, and for the first time in his life, attempted to kill someone.

The bang Mae had heard was the rifle, it hit Garrity on the shoulder.

Garrity nearly fell. It felt like a horse kicked him in the shoulder. At the least, he let go of Bea, who ran immediately.

Angus snapped up Bea in seconds, running indoors.

They closed the door, and moved a nearby bookcase over it. Mae was still on the carpet, barely aware of where she was.

"What now!?"

"We go upstairs, hide in the attic!"

As everyone went up the stairs, shots rang out from the door.

Garrity was shooting through the door’s hinges with the usable bullets he had, so he could tear it down and enter.

Mae became aware of the situation when they brought her into the attic, her room. The Witchdagger poster in the room mocking her with it's gaze.

Her bed was turned on it's side, leaning against the door. Everyone was trying to push something to the door, block it.

Even the still dazed Mae recognized that bullets could easily go through everything they were placing against the door.

Garrity just wanted her.

While everyone was shoving dressers in a panic, Mae squeezed through the window. Gregg actually noticed, but Mae was far enough so that Gregg could only grab a boot.

Mae jumped from the edge of the roof, onto the power lines. It had been quite a while since she'd been able to do it.

Gregg was the only one brave enough to climb onto the roof. He wouldn't jump onto the powerlines, though. Everyone else tried their best to lean through the small window.

"Mae! Get back here!" her father called from the window.

"He wants me! Not you!" She was able to yell back, running off on the wire top.

"She's crazy!" Gregg stayed from the edge of the roof. He had done stupid things all the time. Yet, he saw those powerlines 5 feet away and simply _knew_ not to jump. Yet there Mae was, running along them. 

Everyone in Mae 's room soon had to hit the deck. Garrity on the other side simply chose to shoot through the door. Gregg's heart skipped a beat when he felt the bullets whizz past his head.

Having expended a decent chunk of what he had, Garrity kicked the remaining door and barriers open.

He took a peek in, saw she'd escape through the window, and immediately left before Stan could get his bearings, relearn how to use the stupid rifle and fire.

As he ran down the stairs, it began to occur that his left shoulder was now unusable. Rifle shot destroyed the bone and nearly nicked an artery. At any rate, the painkillers dulled the pain, but now he'd have to depend on his right arm only.

Gregg saw Mae run off on the powerline out of sight, and from the roof saw Garrity run off in her direction.

He meant what he said when it came to trying to help her to the bitter end. To that extent, he took out something he hadn't gotten a chance to use: a shiny new crossbow.

He yelled to those inside, "I'm going in after him! you got him in the shoulder, I'll get him in the rest!"

Before Angus could even protest, he slid down and off the roof, rolling over some bushes, and ran off after him.

Angus could have strangled him if he wasn't so far away now. On the other hand, Mae was his best friend, too. He wordlessly took a deep breath from his inhaler and ran off after him.

Bea had just been kidnapped by this psychopath, and seen him murder someone in cold blood. She did a really good job of hiding the fact that she might have been the most scared person there, especially of him. she ran also anyway, wanting to see this to the end.

Stan tried to grab onto Bea to prevent her from running, but was too late. He turned to look at Candy.

"We have to go after them, we-"

"Honey.." After everything, she was scared. The sanctity of her home had been destroyed twice in a row, her only daughter was a monster, and was being hunted down by a psychotic brother of a town member she may or may not have murdered.

"We need to go. It still isn't over yet. staying home scared wouldn't do anything, it isn't even safe here!"

"I just need a moment to breathe." She was older, she'd never been in a situation like this. It was like a nightmare come to life.

Mae continued her powerline run, several blocks down. She'd figured out the trick long ago from seeing squirrels jump the wires. She ran in a way where only one foot touched a line every step. Both feet touch two different wires meant cat barbeque.

Up until that moment, Mae had done a good job at never messing up on the wires.

Until her foot slid on a patch of ice that was on top of the wire. She very nearly slid onto the other wires, turning to fall onto the pavement at the last moment.

She turned to hit the pavement on all fours, but her right foot touched the floor first, and took all the impact. She turned and rolled, but the new sharp pain in her foot meant that she wasn't getting away quickly.

She limped on, foot exploding into pain whenever she put her weight on it. She turned the corner, limping to where she heard the gunfire.

Possum springs always had a small town charm to it. There were always people outside enjoying the genuinely nice weather, the fresh forest smells. Everyone knowing each other could be a mixed blessing at times, but in the better times, it was downright cozy. It'd be lovely if it wasn't dying.

At the moment, it seemed to by dying in a more literal sense.

Mae turned her head at the crossing and saw a warzone. The monster, the one she felt, the one that made her a monster, was down the street. Distressingly close to her house. There were people shooting at it from the street, and people from the roofs shooting at the monster.

There were also dead people. people who got to close or were just unlucky and got killed for it. Some unlucky bastard had crashed next to Mae, he likely swerved out of the way and died when he hit the building. It was like he was sleeping, more than anything the only clue he was dead were the embedded shards of glass in his face.

Even until now, Mae had never seen a dead person, despite all the surprising death that had encompassed her life in the last few months. She saw an arm, but without the rest of the body, the arm was just a funny lump of flesh. This was a guy who's entire existence got yanked from him at the end of an average day.

He’d been reduced to nothing but a dead shape. Not just in Mae’s mind, but in reality.

Except Mae didn’t see it that way.

She saw him.

She saw him. For all she knew, she might have been the only person to have ever seen him.

Not in the literal sense, of course. She saw the human being who was there. She didn’t even know who he was or even his name, and she’d probably never know. 

Tears were running down her face. There was a disgusting irony that the first person she saw as not a dead shape, but a real person was a corpse.

She was still glad.

She remembered the day she snapped and saw things as shapes. It wasn’t just the fact that everything was ripped from her, the life she lived was nothing. Not meaningless, not all for nothing, just nothing. It was like every little fear, every little insecurity was true.

Her life was shattered, and the shards kept breaking and breaking.

Now there was nothing left to break. It all broke again. All because she saw someone.

Her life had been given another utter looparound, what she thought was real once again thrown out the window. She couldn’t help but be a little glad this time. With the sudden and sharp descent her life had just undergone, now it didn’t mean that much, afterall.

It was sunset, the sun low in the sky. There were dead people on the streets. Mae found herself drawn to the monster.

Mae limped on though the streets. People were running into their homes or driving off to get away. Some of the hunters were even running right up to the creature, try and shoot it close up as if that would work better..

As she walked through the streets, she felt a starling sense of finality. This might be the last time she walks this beat path. 

She felt an odd sense of peace.

She'd accepted it.

It was all gonna change and be gone. She might die by the end of this, and even if she lived to see tomorrow, everything would flipped. No more possum springs, possibly. No more Bea, Gregg, Angus, Her parents. It'd all come to an end eventually.

At least she wasn’t alone, even if that guy was dead.

She knew the peace was temporary. she'd start kicking and screaming once she was alone, try and drive what remained away, locked in by the shapes. 

That didn't matter. Everything is temporary, after all.

All that mattered is that she had this moment of clarity, of reality. No shapes, just the rest or the remainder of her life ahead of her.

She could see the monster ahead. some of the hunters were overhead on rooftops shooting at the mass. she heard the sounds, but nothing clicked in her head.

Whenever she turned before, it was painful, like dying. This time, it was a strange feeling. Sadness at what she would lose, yet joy at her being able to move on. An epiphany.

The creature was roaring, but stopped halfway through to look at her.

It began it's way to her. Finish something it started.

The hunters were yelling to go protect the girl, get her away. One guy was even on the street running towards Mae.

The monster lept towards her, enveloping her for a moment.

Only a moment.

The creature suddenly flew backwards, smashing a storefront.

And then, there were two. 

Both primal monsters roaring at each other, ready for the throwdown.

Garrity was initially lost as to where to go, until he noticed the gunfire doubled in intensity.

His guess turned out to be correct when he walked and saw the bizarre sight. The girl, now a massive monster, was fighting the larger monster he saw before. A clash of midnight blue and jet black. It was an odd mixture of bears fighting and a drunken bar fight. The midnight blue was even punching the other. Neither had even noticed the hail of bulletfire from all directions, both more invested in their savage brawl.

It occurred to him that if he killed both, he'd be hailed as a hero, or at least get a lighter sentence.

With one arm hanging useless and the other holding the gun, he ran up to a nearby apartment complex that had its doors left open. He'd simply get to the roof and shoot both.

The roof was empty, but he could see other people attempting to shoot the monster on nearby rooftops. The place was five stories tall. He got a perfect view. It'd be difficult to aim one handed, but not impossible.

He observed the monsters as they fought. The midnight blue was fighting to the best of it's abilities, but the bigger one had the advantage of simply having too much mass to push off. It bit into her, and tried to crush her windpipe. The blue one tried to do the same, but the bigger one for the most part shrugged off its efforts.

It had her pinned on the ground, biting into her chest where it bit her to begin with. The blue one scrambled and clawed like an animal in a trap. It then almost had what could be called a moment of realization, and calmed down enough to simply shove it's clawed digits into the bigger creature's eyes.

In pain, the bigger one shook the midnight blue in its teeth before letting go, the blue one hitting and breaking a utility pole, sparks and fire filling the streets.

If it had awareness, it was coming to it. It saw the broken wood from the pole on the ground, and instinctively knew to grab it like a bat. The big one ran in to give another big bite, only to get smacked in the face mid bite by the pole.

Garrity witnessed this from the roofs. If the blue one could keep using what resembled human intelligence, it could have a good shot at winning. As he took aim, he'd make sure neither would.

He heard a bang, but it wasn't him. A chunk of the concrete roof exploded, throwing off his aim. He turned to look, it was that little bastard's father. 

Once again, the gods smiled upon Garrity. A nearby hunter noticed him shooting at the roof, and grabbed his gun to try and wrestle it from what he thought was a madman. Even the little shit's mother was there, attempting to explain. He'd have to take the shot _now_.

He took aim, only to feel a stunning pain in the back under his shoulder blade.

The orange one (Gregg) had followed him onto the roof and shot him in the back with an arrow.

Before he could shoot the crossbow again, Garrity shot him. The bullet went through the crossbow itself, sending shrapnel and metal into Gregg's hands and chest. The bullet managed to enter Gregg's chest, but going through the metal of the crossbow managed to slow it down enough so that it just broke skin and chipped a rib.

Either way, the force of his crossbow exploding made him involuntarily drop it. Gregg didn't know what just happened, but he wasn't dead, so he charged with a knife. Despite common logic, if one is close enough, you can actually successfully charge someone with a gun.

Gregg did so, tackling him to the floor of the roof and sending a knife in his chest. Garrity responded by giving him a hard hit to the side of the head with the butt of the gun. Gregg saw stars from the pain of the blow, and got thrown off by Garrity. Garrity kept hitting him in the face, the metal of the rifle making an odd sound when it hit the skull.

Garrity kept hitting him until he felt confident Gregg wouldn't get up, at least not quickly.

His time was running out. Forget aiming, he had to shoot and take his chances before someone else attempted to stop him.

First two shots didn't come close to hitting her.

Third hit the utility pole she was using to whack the bigger one in the face with.

Fourth one hit her right in the thigh.

It was amazing how such a relatively small bullet caused the creature so much pain, it dropped everything to scream, only for the bigger one to overtake it. Even now that the bigger one was savaging it, it seemed to be even more pain from the leg wound.

Five would be the killing shot.

Garrity was about to shoot number five when his feet no longer touched the ground.

Angus had ran up and seen what he'd done to his boyfriend. 

In response, he chose to lift the old bastard up like a small child, then throw him off the roof.

Stan was still fighting over the rifle when the guy he was fighting with suddenly screamed. He turned to see Garrity fall from the top floor of the fifth story building.

He almost seemed to fall in slow motion, falling three stories.

At the second story, he hit an untouched utility pole.

When he hit the electrical transformer mounted on the pole, the world suddenly flashed a brilliant blue. An almost cartoonish electrical noise snapping through the air.

He hit the ground soon after, bouncing off the ground even, smoke emanating from the burnt clothes and flesh on him.

Bea didn't witness what happened, she was still going up the stairwell. She noticed as she walked up that the building was _groaning._ From outside, the cacophony of bullets masked the sounds, but from the relative quietness from the inside of the stairwell, she felt and heard the building groan from stress in the foundation. She remembered when Mae and her encountered a sinkhole in the cemetery. She was scared that a sinkhole might be opening up on this side of town.

Whatever happened, she'd have a better chance on the roof. 

At the roof, she saw Angus. He was breathing heavily.

"What happened to Garrity?"

"I threw him off the roof."

"What?!"

"He shot Gregg. @#$# him."

Gregg protested from the ground "I think the shot hit the crossbow. my head hurts a lot though"

“It doesn't matter that...that-" Angus managed to eek out before suddenly having to sit. He was having an asthma attack.

Gregg was still reeling from the head wounds, blood running down his temple. He still jumped to help his loved one.

He and Bea scrambled to search his pockets. "His Inhaler, he needs his inhaler!" Gregg stressed, desperately searching.

No one noticed the groaning, let alone the struggling on the roof.

Mae heard, somewhere deep down in the primal monster she was now.

The big one was about to finish everything, clamp down on her throat.

Mae grabbed the jaws as they came inches from her neck, and yanked them in opposite directions, horizontally.

The big one attempted to retreat, its jaws broken in the wrong direction. Mae would not let it go, smashing it at the base of the skull with her claws.

While everyone fought for something, nobody noticed the smoking mass crawling on the ground.

Garrity was still alive. 

He was on his way out, he could feel his life slipping from his grasp. He couldn't feel his legs, and his stomach was warm, wet, and was bleeding all over the place. He thought his left eyelid didn't want to open, so he tried to move it with his hand only for flesh and fur to come off his face and stick to his fingers.

At this point, as he crawled closer to the monsters fighting, the only thing that kept him alive was hatred.

Garrity flipped onto his backpack, his final resting place. He was amazed his backpack of tannerite never detonated, the analog trigger surviving the electric shock.

He pulled the trigger from his pocket, pressing it as life left him. He preferred to die on his own terms. The last thing to enter his mind was a twinge of regret.

A loud bang filled the air, the tannerite detonating. Small fragments of silver shooting through the air, hitting both monsters, the hunters, the storefronts, the cars...

The bang, above all, triggered the sinkhole.

It had been under stress for years and years, with an underground cave river carving upwards, and the stress of the town pressing downwards.

The last hour or so proved to be the straw that broke the camel's back.

Mae's father spent the last few minutes arguing with this man, now both he and his wife were running for their lives.

It was like someone pulled a drain on the earth, everything suddenly pulling towards a growing hole in the world. Concrete pulled into the earth, cars, utility poles, parts of the sidewalks, even both monsters disappearing into the growing abyss.

Thankfully for everyone in the nearby buildings, the buildings did not collapse, though much of the facades of the buildings came loose.

In the case of the apartment building Bea, Gregg, and Angus were, the entire front chunk of the building came off. Exposing the innards of the building, people cowering in the corners.

All Bea and Gregg and Angus felt was the ground beneath them giving way before they hit the ground hard, water surging upwards.

Mae and the thing that made her this way fought in the running river beneath the town, the concrete and earth trapping them like rats. Both were something unnatural, beasts that dwarfed anything in the normal, natural world. Both were now under threat of drowning in simple running water.

Concrete suddenly flew from the hole, Mae had broken into the air first. She clawed frantically, to get back to safety.

So was the bigger one.

A mere wild animal would have scrambled up, forging the fight for the sake of survival.

Mae didn't. As the other scrambled into the air, Mae used her vantage on the ground to force it into the water, it's head disappearing into the water.

It fought and thrashed, clawing at her feet and legs, the water soon rising to Mae's chest. Soon enough, it's thrashing slowed and slowed, eventually stopping. It drowned in the running water.

Bea and Gregg were scrambling. the water was rising. Angus was still fighting for breath. Gregg was scrambling to operate the inhaler for Angus before the water rose too high. It was already to their necks, Gregg propping Angus's body on his knees, trying to keep his neck from water.

In the struggle, suddenly massive hands lifted them, up and out of the hole.

On the concrete, Gregg was finally able to get the inhaler to work. Angus was finally able to breath as his airway relaxed. He looked up to see what saved them.

It was Mae. She was a monster now, brutish and hulking, but when he looked into its eyes, Mae looked back.

No words were traded, Mae probably not even being able to speak. Mae stared at her friends for a while, taking them in.

Soon the gunfire resumed, the hunters wanting to bag the superbear that killed eleven people. Mae turned to the forests, and after taking one last look and not just her friends, but the town he'd known her entire life, disappeared into the woods.

............................................................................................................................

Harfest came to the town again.

It was a tad different this year.

A small chunk of town had its foundations ruined by the sinkhole, not to mention the new massive gaping hole near the town's center. 28 people died (including the previous deaths attributed to the werewolf), and shitloads of hunters were arrested for reckless use of firearms.

Nominally, that would have been the death knell for the town, but it turned out not to be.

People were able to fish the werewolf out of the underground river. 

With a large scale animal attack destroying part of a small town, along with one of the animals being recovered turning out to be something that no one had even seen before, suddenly possum springs became a place of interest. Weirdos from all over the country wanted to see the place where a more or less real life werewolf was found. Even mostly serious taxonomists came in to find out what kind of creature it even is. Apparently lack of success in finding out what exactly it was led to ongoing extensive DNA testing. Bea even heard that the town council wanted to have the creature stuffed and mounted in the town library.

It was rather morbid to be profiting off of the dead, but who can argue with money?

Even her dad was getting out of the house more, going to the store where Bea would usually be. Nothing was certain, but Bea hoped with the new influx of cash, that she had the slim chance to go to college.

Not everything was roses. Gregg and Angus moved out not too long ago. Bea was still in contact, but it was sad to see friends go.

Mae was also gone. 

Nobody knew where she went that night. she just disappeared without a trace.

Bea suspected that her parents were still in contact with her somehow, because they mourned, but not in the way you'd mourn a dead or disappeared person. it was like when she went to college.

As for Joe Garrity, there wasn’t enough to bury. His funeral was apparently more of an obligation, with very few showing up. The few friends he made in Possum Springs were more his dead brother's friends than his. Neither did anyone from his old life come back, choosing to leave him in the past. In the end, all he had for his life was an empty grave next to his brother’s coffin.

Bea walked through the semi-crowded streets, lots of out of towners here to see where the werewolf was killed. Thankfully, they were more than happy to partake in the local Harfest festivities. Bea was certain that the play that always gets put on in the store might have an audience this time.

She walked through the streets, the sun getting low enough for the candles and lanterns to go on to enhance the mood. There was a nice autumn chill, with the smell of woods and brick and mortar filling the air. Truth be told, the one two punch of the cult and being kidnapped by Garrity made her as reclusive as her dad, at first. Thankfully, the money coming in allowed them to afford a therapist that wasn't Doctor Hank. She was still seeing the counselor to this day, and would have to for a while. At least by now, the danger had passed, and she was able to go out. The world had returned to a semblance of normalcy.

She then realized Mae was waiting to be noticed right next to her, standing there. She was wearing an approximation of the harvest witch costume from last year.

"Mae!?"

"That's me, yeah"

"Where have you been?"

"Elsewhere. Places."

"Wherever you've been, are you happy there? no shapes, or-"

"Yes, and no. It's complicated. It's been a strange year."

"Why'd you come back? You need help or?"

"I came because you need a witch for your harfest play!"

"Just that?"

"Well, okay, I came to reassure mom and dad and aunt mallcop that I'm okay, more or less. Mostly here for that play, though."

"My dad's out of the house again, so I was going to be the witch this year instead of the narrator."

"Well, at least I'm still dressed for the season, I guess."

Bea reached to grab a cigarette, only to remember she quit. old habits die hard. "So. What now?"

"Why not just walk, talk, and so on. I'm back in town for now, and it's a nice night! Just remember that I can't stick around for too long."

The long time friends walked down the streets they grew up in as the sun set in the sky, disappearing among the children of the night. That midnight in possum springs, the music of the night time woods had one more voice in the crowd.

............................................................................................................................

> _Dust on this tired, old street_
> 
> _Mark corners where we used to play_
> 
> _Dust trace our tired, old feet_
> 
> _In circles as we pace our time away_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AFTERWORD:
> 
> Ever get that feeling of sadness when you’ve finished something you really enjoyed, because you know that means no more, nada, finished? That’s what I felt when I finished it, first time. Nominally, it would have ended there, but to tell you the truth, the game inspired me to try my own thing. Said thing is still nowhere close to being presentable, and I need to practice writing, hence this story. A nice little send off, mentally. Despite that, I’ll always find some place in my heart for this game. My next fics will be in wildly different fandoms and genres, but I suppose even in fics, NITW got me started. If you're reading this and you’ve never written before, try it! No one is good at their first shot, but you’ll get better every time. (Kind of a random side-tangent, but i always wondered if there was a nitw fic involving werewolves, I checked myself, doesn't seem to be. Also hence this story.) Thank you for your time and patience.


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